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1481 
SOCIAL & POLITICAL IDEAS 
OF SOME GREAT THINKERS 
OF THE RENAISSANCE AND 
THE REFORMATION 


at 
4 


i 
: 


es 


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reas 


THE 
SOCIAL & POLITICAL IDEAS 
OF SOME GREAT THINKERS 
OF THE RENAISSANCE AND 
THE REFORMATION 


A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT 
KING’S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 


EDITED BY 


F. J. C. HEARNSHAW M.A. LL.D. 


PROFESSOR OF MEDIZVAL HISTORY IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
WITH A PREFACE BY 
ERNEST BARKER M.A. D.Lirrt. LL.D. 


PRINCIPAL OF KING’S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY 
OF LONDON 


NEW YORK 


BRENTANO’S 
PUBLISHERS 


Printed in Great Britain at Tue BALLANTYNE Press by 
SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & Co. LTp. 
Colchester, London & Eton 


PREFACE 


[ie public lectures which, largely under the inspira- 


tion and by the efforts of Professor Hearnshaw in 

the Faculty of Arts and Professor Dendy in the 
Faculty of Natural Science, have been given for many years 
past in King’s College have already issued in the publication 
of four volumes based upon courses delivered in the College 
to general audiences. Professor Dendy, whose sudden 
death is a serious loss alike to the College, the University 
of London, and the world of learning, had edited, or 
published from his own pen, two volumes dealing with 
subjects of natural science. Professor Hearnshaw, as the 
reader will see from the notice which confronts the title-page, 
has already edited two volumes on matters of medizval 
history. One of these volumes dealt with the social and 
political ideas of some great medizval thinkers. ‘The 
present book, which is in the nature of a continuation— 
though it is, of course, a separate and independent volume— 
is concerned with the ideas of some of the thinkers who in- 
spired the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. 

I cannot but express the hope that the continuation will 
itself be followed by a continuation, and that we may receive 
from Professor Hearnshaw a further volume dealing with the 
social and political ideas of thinkers of a more modern age. 

With the exception of the lecture on Luther by Professor 
J. W. Allen (who in this, as in the two previous volumes of 
lectures edited by Professor Hearnshaw, has been a generous 
contributor), the lectures printed in this volume are all the 
work of members of the staff of King’s College. It would 
ill become me to blow up a trumpet in their praise ; nor 


5 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


have they any need of a herald to announce their styles and 
titles. But I would say that they seem to me to have been 
fortunate in the themes they have found to their hand. 
They are concerned with the thinkers of a new age, in 
which a philosophy so accepted that it had become con- 
ventional, and a matter of rote, was being shed (though, as 
we find more and more, medizval philosophy had such large 
elements of permanent truth that it cannot long be shed, 
but usgue recurret), and in which, again, a freshness and 
novelty of view, as of a spring-time of the mind, naturally 
clothed thought and its expression. Nicolas of Cusa, it is 
true, like Sir John Fortescue, retains many elements of 
medieval thought ; but Nicolas was also a scholar of the 
Renaissance and, for a time, an upholder of the revolutionary 
conciliar movement in the Church, and Sir John Fortescue, 
if he spoke in terms of Aquinas, was also the interpreter, 
or the forerunner, of modern English constitutionalism. 
Machiavelli, with a keen eye fixed in penetrating regard 
on the verita effettuale delle cose ; Sir ‘Thomas More, steeped 
in Platonism and the social problems of a new age; Erasmus, 
the would-be founder of a new and yet old philosophia 
Christi—all these have a brightness and a novelty which ages 
donot dim. Luther and Calvin shook the world of thought; 
their conceptions of State and society have influenced all 
succeeding generations, as well as their own. Each reader 
of this volume will choose for himself among these figures 
for his special study. But none, I venture to think, will 
more repay study than Nicolas of Cusa, whether his theme 
be of “learned ignorance ”’ or of “ catholic concordance,”’ 
or, again, than Sir Thomas More, who, if he could persecute 
heretics, yet loved toleration, and international peace, and 


the cause of social justice. 
ERNEST BARKER 


CONTENTS 


I. IntTRopucToRY : THE RENAISSANCE AND THE 


PAGE 


REFORMATION 9 
By the Epiror. 
II. Nicotas or Cusa a2. 


By E. F. Jacoz, M.A., D.Phil., Fellow of All Souls 
College, Oxford; late Lecturer in Medieval History 
at King’s College, London. 


III. Str Joun Fortescur 61 


By Miss A. E. Levert, M.A., Lecturer in History 
at King’s College, London, and ‘Tutor to Women 
Students. 


IV. Nicoto Macuiave.ii 87 
By the Epiror. 


V. Str Tuomas More 127 


By A. W. Rep, M.A., D.Lit., Reader in English at 
King’s College, London. 


VI. Destper1us Erasmus 149 


By J. A. K. Tuomson, M.A., Professor of Classics at 
King’s College, London. 


VII. Martin LutTuer I71 


By J. W. Atten, M.A., Professor of History at Bed- 
ford College, London. 


VIII. Joun Carvin 193 
By the Rev. W. R. Matruews, M.A., D.D., Dean of 
King’s College, London, and Professor of the Philo- 
sophy of Religion. 


tae hae 


’ 


me 


THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEAS 
OF SOME GREAT THINKERS OF 
THE RENAISSANCE AND 
THE REFORMATION 


J 
INTRODUCTORY 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE 
REFORMATION 


I 
|: is the fashion nowadays to deny the Renaissance 


and to decry the Reformation. ‘ Renaissance,’ or re- 

birth, it is said, implies previous death, and through- 
out the Middle Ages there had been no death, but, on 
the contrary, a continuity of vigorous and prolific life. 
Similarly, ‘ Reformation,’ or construction anew, connotes 
a return to a pristine purity of organisation and belief ; 
and, it is argued, the sixteenth century saw no such return, 
but rather the mere destruction of ancient institutions, the 
disintegration of venerable creeds, the stoppage of the 
process of divine evolution, and a return to (if anything) 
primordial chaos. ‘These critical and unfavourable views 
of Renaissance and Reformation mark the extreme of the 
present-day reaction against the excessive protestantism of 
the seventeenth century and the exaggerated rationalism 
of the eighteenth. 

The seventeenth century was an age of intense theo- 
logical passion, of fierce religious persecution, of vivid 
memories of massacres and assassinations on behalf of 
the faith, of devastating civil wars between the adherents 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of conflicting creeds. In countries such as England, 
North Germany, and the Dutch Netherlands—where Pro- 
testantism prevailed-the Reformation was regarded as 
the breaking of a glorious dawn after a millennial night 
of unrelieved darkness, ignorance, and superstition. Even 
in countries—such as France, Spain, and Italy—where, 
after a sharp struggle, Catholicism re-established itself, the 
theologians and administrators of the new and dominant 
Order of Jesus regarded with some contempt the groping 
and puerile expositions of the cause of the Church which 
scholastic dialecticians had presented to the medieval 
mind. 

The eighteenth century—the self-styled Age of Reason— 
went farther than the seventeenth, and poured a sceptical 
disdain upon Catholic and Protestant alike. Representa- 
tive thinkers of high eminence, such as Hume, Voltaire, 
and Goethe, rejected the whole Christian scheme of things, 
and professed faith in the unaided human intellect to solve 
the mystery of existence, and to furnish the spirit of man 
with a satisfying ethic and politic. It was at this time that 
the threefold division of history into ancient, medizval, 
and modern was adopted, and at this time that the medizval 
millennium received its disparaging designation, the Dark 
Ages. They were considered to be unworthy of study: 
they were a mere interlude of blackness between the dim 
light of classical antiquity and the high noon of eighteenth- 
century rationalism. ‘“‘ I know nothing of those ages which 
knew nothing,” was the boast of one of the pundits of the 
period. Even Gibbon, who made it his business to know 
something of them, treated them with undisguised loathing 
and contempt. He lamented the fall of pagan Rome; 
he deplored the triumph of Christianity ; he regretted the 
incursion of the Teutons; he welcomed the Renaissance 
as a return to the sanity of the Hellenic world, and the 
fo 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


Reformation as, at any rate, a successful revolt against the 
obscurantism of the papal autocracy. 

The hopes of the eighteenth-century rationalists were, 
however, doomed to disappointment. The empirical philo- 
sophers, the natural theologians, the utilitarian moralists, 


the political economists, the materialistic philanthropists, _ 


failed to satisfy the deeper spiritual needs of the time. The 
“enlightened despots’ of the period, to whom social re- 


formers looked for the salvation of mankind, proved to be. 
but impotent fools, whose obvious imbecility was scarcely (" , 


palliated by a doubtful benevolence. The eighteenth- 
century exaltation of intellect, at the expense of emotion 
and will, culminated in the French Revolution and the 
awful orgies with which Hébert and his fellow fanatics 
celebrated the worship of the Goddess of Reason on the 
desecrated altars of the church of Notre-Dame. Amid the 
horrors and abominations of Jacobin tyranny, and during 
the oppression of Rationalist persecution, the Romantic 
reaction was born. Religion resumed her sway over 
the minds of men. The emotion of worship and the 
will to believe reasserted themselves triumphantly against 
the discredited claims and presumptuous appeals of 
ineffective intellect. The tragedies of the quarter-century 
1789-1815 were traced back to the disintegration of 
Christendom caused by the Reformation, and to the 
repudiation of spiritual authority associated with the 
Renaissance. 

Protestantism—which had generally declined to uni- 
tarianism, deism, and agnosticism—was widely repudiated. 
Catholicism, both Roman and Anglican, was recalled to 
life in a marvellous outburst of energy. The Middle 
Ages once more were exalted, their study renewed, their 
writings re-edited and disseminated afresh, their glories 
depicted in glowing colours, their ideals reaffirmed, their 

II 


‘ii, 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


institutions and practices re-established. “[hus—to return 
to the point from which we started—the Renaissance was 
denied and the Reformation disparaged. 


II 


In this controversy between eighteenth-century Rational- 
ists and nineteenth-century Romanticists where does the 
truth lie? It would appear to lie midway between the two 
extremes. 

On the one hand, the Middle Ages were by no means 
wholly dark or dead. It is true that they saw a decline in 
science, a decadence in art, a dearth in literature, accom- 
panied by an invasion of barbarism, a recrudescence of 
superstition, a cessation of peace, a disappearance of com- 
fort, a chronic prevalence of plague, pestilence, and famine, 
a deplorable falling away from the culture and humanity 
of the pagan world at its best. But, to set over against 
this, it is equally true that they saw, particularly in their 
central period (a.D. 604-1303), a vast elevation and puri- 
fication of religion, an incalculably great exaltation and 
extension of morality, an immense advance in politics. 
They saw a pure and spiritual faith exorcise the demons 
which, under the names of divinities, the pagan masses had 
adored; they saw the gentler virtues of brotherly kindness 
and love prevail over the sterner and more limited virilities 
called forth by sanguinary games and merciless war; they 
saw the diminution of slavery, the mitigation of serfdom, 
the spread of freedom, the re-emergence of the individual, 
the growth of representative institutions, the development 
of government by debate, the gradual formation of national 
states dominated increasingly by an ever more articulate 
public opinion. Such was the by no means contemptible 
12 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


heritage which the Middle Ages handed down to the modern 
world. | 

But, on the other hand, a renaissance was necessary, and 
a renaissance there was. It is true that at no time during 
the thousand years which intervened between the fall of 
Rome and the discovery of the New World had the spirit 
of man been wholly dead. At the very worst periods of 
barbarity and tumult the life of learning had been main- 
tained, however feebly, in remote monasteries and seques- 
tered cloisters. From time to time, moreover, during lulls 
in the zonian strife, revivals of scholarship had occurred. 
Not to mention the strange burgeonings of local culture, 
such as that of Ireland in the sixth century and of North- 
umbria in the eighth, there had been a widespread return 
to classical models and a notable expansion of education 
under the Pax Romana which Charlemagne succeeded in 
establishing and maintaining. This premature Renaissance 
was, unfortunately, but short-lived. It was nipped in its 
early promise by the renewed incursions of barbarians 
more ferocious and less assimilable than even those who 
had overthrown Old Rome—Vikings, Slavs, Magyars, 
Saracens, Not till the twelfth century did Christendom 
settle down again to moderate tranquillity. Then there 
transpired that remarkable movement known as the Latin 
Renaissance—a movement which showed how great and 
even magnificent was the vitality which lay at the heart 
of the medizval civilisation. It was marked by, first, the 
revived and systematic study of the Roman Law; secondly, 
the formulation of the scholastic philosophy and theology ; 
thirdly, the founding and development of the great uni- 
_ versities ; finally, the building and decoration of those , 
most perfect embodiments of the medieval genius, the 
Gothic cathedrals. ‘The Latin Renaissance was not frus-— 
trated and rendered unfruitful, as had been the Carolingian 


T3 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Renaissance, by any invasion of enemies from without. It 
was sterilised and destroyed from within by civil conflict 
and religious revolt. ‘The medizval mind, in fact, during 
the thirteenth century, was breaking away from the tutelage 
of the Church, and was seeking the open fields of specula- 
tion and adventure. But the power of the Church was 
great, and her ministers felt it to be their duty to maintain 
their challenged authority. Hence this century, together 
with the fourteenth, was a period of wild heresies and 
wanton schisms repressed by means of merciless in- 
quisitions and sanguinary crusades. The Middle Ages 
terminated in a welter of recrimination and bloodshed. 
The Church suffered hardly less severely than the harassed 
and persecuted sects from the inquisitorial conflicts and 
anti-Christian crusades of the later Middle Ages. The 
decline of her beneficent influence may, indeed, be dated 
from the day when that most imperial and magisterial of 
Popes, Innocent III, launched the hosts of the destroyers 
against the devoted Albigenses (1208). The period which 
that lamentable event inaugurated was marked by unpre- 
cedented eccentricity and intractability of error, and by an 
answering rigidity and ferocity of orthodoxy. ‘The Church, 
which in the early Middle Ages had led the way toward a 
rational interpretation of the mysteries of existence, and 
which in the central medizval period had kept well abreast 
of the best science and philosophy of the time, now fell 
behind and became obscurantist and reactionary. Ideas 
began to reach Western Christendom from the Byzantine 
East, from Mohammedan Spain, from the Egyptian and 
Syrian Orient—ideas which could not be incorporated in 
the accepted body of divine theology, or harmonised with 
the standard creeds of Catholicism. St Thomas Aquinas 
and his school had continued to assert the unity of know- 
ledge, and to contend that all newly discovered truth of every 


14 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


sort could be reconciled with revelation. Duns Scotus 
and his followers had felt constrained to divide truth into 
two compartments, putting on one side that which man 
by means of his reason is capable of perceiving and com- 
prehending, but putting on the other side that which is 
sealed save to the eye of faith. This unsatisfactory dualism, 
although it enabled some amazing intellectual gymnastics 
to be accomplished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
was manifestly impermanent: it was a mere temporary 
expedient to enable sceptics to escape combustion. As 
the number of the sceptics grew, and as the power of the 
Church to kindle bonfires diminished, the necessary unity 
of truth was reproclaimed, and the consequent falsity of 
the medieval system of thought openly affirmed. ‘This 
affirmation was the work of the Renaissance thinkers. 

But not only was the Church of the later Middle Ages 
reactionary and obscurantist. It was also secular and cor- 
rupt. The fatal policy of Innocent III had committed 
it to the threefold worldly task of (1) superseding the Em- 
pire and establishing itself as the sole head of Christendom, 
(2) securing the feudal overlordship of the great European 
kingdoms, and (3) building up a powerful temporal state 
in Italy. This policy involved the Papacy, first, in a life 
or death conflict with the Imperial house of the Hohen- 
staufen ; secondly, in ceaseless brawls with the growing 
power of the rising national kings, such as Edward I of 
England and Philip IV of France; thirdly, in ruinous and 
continuous war with Roman nobles, Neapolitan princes, 
and Lombard cities. In the course of these purely secular 
struggles the Papacy, and with it the Church, lost its 
spiritual and cosmopolitan character. It prostituted its 
supernatural powers—such as excommunication and inter- 
dict—to the base and transitory ends of war and diplomacy ; 
it squandered the revenues provided by the faithful on 


as 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


military excursions and political intrigue; finally it sank 
to the level of a mere Italian principality, as cruel and 
perfidious as the worst. The depth of its degradation and 
impotence was seen when, during its Captivity at Avignon 
(1309-76), it became little more than an appendage to 
the French monarchy ; and then, during the Great Schism 
(1377-1417), it became involved in suicidal civil war. 
There was evident need of a reformation, of an emancipa- 
tion of the Church from the toils of the world, of a return 
to purity and spirituality, of a reaffirmation of the claims 
of personal religion and the necessity of righteousness of 
life. 


III 


The Renaissance of the fifteenth century may be con- 
sidered in many aspects and regarded from various points 
of view. It wasinasensea “ rebirth of the human spirit ” ; 
not, however, as we have remarked, in the sense of a return 
to life, but of an attainment of liberty. ‘There had been 
no death of the spirit in the Middle Ages, but merely 
a thraldom to authority, a thraldom which was not only 
justifiable, but quite inevitable during the immaturity and 
juvenescence of the Teutonic peoples. The Church had, 
indeed, emancipated the barbarian invaders of the Roman 
Empire from the chains of a heavier thraldom; that is to 
say, from the bonds of innumerable and horrible super- 
stitions—a veritable tyranny of devils—by which they were 
enslaved in their pre-Christian days. The creed which the 
Church imposed was incomparably more rational and more 
noble than the paganism which it expelled; and the yoke 
of the Christian priesthood in its best days was immeasur- 
ably lighter and kindlier than the burden imposed by the 
merciless devotees of the Nordic deities. Nevertheless, in 
the fifteenth century the Church had completed its pioneer 
16 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


educative work, and its rule had in its turn become an 
obstacle to the further development of the Western intel- 
lect. Thus the Renaissance may be regarded as the move- 
ment which marked the termination of the tutelage of the 
Teuton and his embarkation upon an independent, adven- 
turous, and perilous career of unguided and unfettered 
speculation. 

Again, the Renaissance may be viewed as the revolt of 
the lay mind against clerical control. ‘The Church during 
the Middle Ages had safeguarded and transmitted some 
portion of the heritage of Greece and Rome. But it was 
a portion selected for theological reasons, and a portion 
from which the classical spirit was carefully and deliberately 
exorcised. ‘The purification of Latin style by Petrarch 
(1304-74) was followed by a reperception of the classical 
spirit; by a search for and a discovery of countless long- 
lost masterpieces of Latin literature; by a recognition of 
the fact that Latin culture was based upon that of Greece ; 
by a renewed study of the Greek language; by a zealous 
collection of Greek manuscripts from the libraries of the 
perishing Byzantine Empire; and by an ultimate reattain- 
ment of the Greek view of life. The Greek view of life 
was secular and pagan. In contradistinction to the medi- 
eval view of life—which had envisaged man as fallen, 
human nature as depraved, the world as evil, the devil as 
dominant on earth, and the brief span of mortal existence 
as merely probationary to an eternity of bliss or woe— 
the Greek view had emphasised the goodness of man, the 
beauty and glory of the earth, the joy of existence, the 
insignificance of the supernatural, the all-importance of 
the present as compared with the irrecoverable past and 
the doubtful future. 

The effect of this return to the pre-Christian attitude to- 
ward Man, Nature, and God, was an outburst of vernacular 

B 17 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


literature—poetry, drama, romance; a marvellous reju- 
venation of art——painting, sculpture, architecture; and, 
above all, a revival of science, wherein the modern mind 
speedily outdistanced the most advanced discoveries and 
speculations of its ancient predecessors. 

Italy was the first country in which this secularist and 
neo-pagan movement made its influence felt. In Italy the 
traditions of the Roman Empire had never wholly been 
broken; the Latin language had remained a living tongue ; 
the Roman Law had retained its authority; the spell of 
the old religions had never been entirely cast off. More- 
over, in the South, which so late as the eleventh century had 
continued under the political control of Constantinople, the 
Greek tongue had never ceased to be spoken, so that Calabria 
was the region to which Byzantine scholars naturally tended 
to migrate when the Turkish advance in the fourteenth 
ana fifteenth centuries made their continuance in the East 
difficult or impossible. Barlaam, who tried to teach Greek 
to Petrarch, and Leontius Pilatus, who succeeded in teaching — 
Greek to Boccaccio (1313-75), were both denizens of Con- 
stantinople who reached Florence by way of Calabria. 

The Renaissance in Italy began as a humanistic revival. 
It was marked by (1) that purification of Latinity which we 
have noted as inaugurated by Petrarch. ‘The papal secre- 
taries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—e.g., Valla, 
Manetti, Bembo, and Poggio—were particularly careful to 
reach and maintain a Ciceronian perfection of diction: a 
quality which, we may remark in passing, seemed to be 
regarded even by the Popes themselves as adequate com- 
pensation for anti-Christian beliefs and flagrantly immoral 
lives. ‘The invention of printing and the multiplication 
of classical texts greatly extended the influence of the 
stylists, and gave rise both to criticism of the form and to 
widespread study of the substance of the writers of ancient 
18 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 
Rome. The purification of Latin was followed by (2) the 


recovery of Greek. The pioneer labours of Barlaam and 
Pilatus were continued much more systematically and effec- 
tively by Manuel Chrysoloras—who taught at Florence 
(1397-1400), and later at Pavia, Milan, Venice, and Rome 
—and by a host of successors, among whom Gemistos 
Plethon (7. 1438) and John Lascaris (d. 1535) were perhaps 
the most notable. The printing of the Greek classics at 
the Aldine Press in Venice was an event of primary im- 
portance in the history of European culture. The dis- 
semination of Latin and Greek literature, whether in 
manuscript or in type, was a challenge to study and dis- 
cussion. Hence, as a further feature of the humanistic 
revival, we have to note (3) the founding of academies. 
Most notable of these was the Florentine Academy founded 
by Cosimo de Medici about 1458, and developed by his 
son Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was rendered illustrious 
by the activities of such members as Marsilio Ficino, Pico 
della Mirandola, Michelangelo, and Politian. The Roman 
Academy gave itself to the study of antiquities, and be- 
coming thus political and revolutionary it had to be sup- 
pressed. The Neapolitan Academy, keeping clear both of 
philosophy which led to atheism and of politics which ended 
in republicanism, devoted its energies to purely literary 
pursuits. ‘The Venetian Academy, closely associated with 
Aldo and his press, organised itself with admirable self- 
devotion and success to the preparation of critical editions 
of the Greek classics. The founding of academies was 
accompanied by (4) the formation of libraries. Specially 
noteworthy among these were the Medicean Library at 
Florence, the Vatican Library at Rome, the library of manu- 
scripts collected by Federico da Montefeltro at Urbino, 
and the library primarily of Greek works, which Cardinal 
Bessarion—himself a convert from the Greek to the Latin 


19 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


communion—gave to the city of Venice in 1468. Finally, 
the humanistic revival necessitated (5) a remoulding of 
education. ‘The medieval trivium and quadrivium, in- 
tended to supply the foundation for the superstructure of 
theology, were found to be no longer adequate to bear the 
weight of the new learning, or to permit the manifestation 
of the classical spirit. The humanistic ideal of education 
was vot to repress and subdue the natural faculties of a 
child, but to develop and enlarge them; wot to inculcate 
asceticism, but to encourage athleticism; to achieve zot 
self-abnegation, but self-realisation. Prominent among the 
pioneers of the new education were Vittorino da Feltre 
(1397-1446) and Guarino da Verona (1370-1460). 

The humanistic revival was speedily followed by a renais- 
sance in art. In sculpture and in architecture this renais- 
sance took the form of a return to classical models. It was. 
impossible to improve upon the perfection of the divine 
humanity revealed in the masterpieces of Phidias; it was 
difficult to build anything better or more beautiful than the 
gems which adorned the Acropolis or even the Capitol. 
In painting, however, there was a notable and original 
advance. Little of Greek or Roman painting was known. 
Painting had not been one of the dominant arts of antiquity ; 
and such works as had been achieved had for the most part 
been wrought in fading colours and perishable materials, 
and so had been lost. Of medizval painting there was 
enough, and more than enough. From the esthetic point 
of view it was atrocious. It had not been intended to 
please the eye. Its purpose had been didactic; its form 
was deliberately conventional, like the letters of a modern 
alphabet ; it had no closer a relation to nature than have the 
beasts and birds of heraldry. Medizval painting lacked 
perspective ; its pictures were devoid of depth; they had 
no background ; they were relieved by no varieties of light 
20 | 


& 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


and shade; their human figures were anatomical impossi- 
bilities, no suggestion of vitality or mobility mitigating 
their melancholy, statuesque, and everlasting hideousness ; 
no feeling for nature lent a touch of charm to any fresco 
or altar-piece. The dawn of the renaissance of painting 
came with the Franciscan movement of the thirteenth 
century. St Francis himself—by instinct a heretic, and 
kept within the obedience of the Church only by his own 
extraordinary peacefulness and humility, and by the unusual 
wisdom and forbearance of Pope Innocent I[I1—had heralded 
the return to nature, by his tender love for birds and beasts, 
and by his quick eye for beauty in mountain, wood, and 
sea. The world to him was not the theologians’ world, 
- incurably evil, hopelessly corrupt, dominated by the devil, 
a mere snare to the senses of the would-be devout; it was 
a fair and pleasant world, eloquent of the glory of the 
Creator, full of aids to worship, resonant with songs of\praise. 
The world, in short, as it presented itself to St Francis was 
essentially the world as it had appeared to the artists of 
antique Athens. The Franciscan feeling for nature was 
soon caught by the painters. Cimabue began to depict 
realistically the human form divine, as, for example, in 
his Madonna in the church of Santa Maria at Florence 
(1267). Giotto, a generation later, introduced backgrounds 
of exquisite natural scenery in the twenty-eight frescoes 
wherewith he adorned the church of St Francis at Assisi. 
But it was the Franciscans, Fra Angelico and Fra Lippo 
Lippi, who, at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of 
the fifteenth century, marked the full return to nature and 
humanity. With Botticelli (1447-1510) the classical in- 
fluence became dominant: he painted Madonnas whose 
proper name should have been Venus. This great painter 
lived to see the life and work of the three still greater masters 
of art whose achievements constitute the Golden Age of 

2I 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


the Italian Renaissance, viz., Leonardo da Vinci (1452- 
1515), Raphael (1483-1520), and Michelangelo (1475- 
1564). 

Leonardo was wholly pagan in spirit, and Michelangelo, 
for all his preoccupation with prophets and saints, was 
primarily inspired by classical mythology. It 1s significant 
that one of Leonardo’s pictures is said by some to represent 
John the Baptist, and by others Bacchus! It is equally 
significant that Michelangelo’s great statue of Moses should 
be the perfect model of Olympian Jove. ‘The same rever- 
sion to pre-Christian antiquity was evident in literature. 
Classical models were imitated in pastoral poems, satires, 
epics, dramas, epistles. Even in poems devoted to Chris- 
tian themes the technical terminology of the Church was 
transmuted to most incongruous pagan equivalents: nuns 
became vestales; cardinals augures; St Peter and St Paul 
dii tutelares Rome; the Christian Deity Himself Jupiter 
Optimus Maximus. 

The study of Greek and Latin texts led in the natural 
course of things to the study of the original versions of the 
Old and New Testaments. The later Middle Ages had 
seen some attempts to get behind the readings of the Vul- 
gate. Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln, Friar Roger Bacon, 
the Dominicans of Paris, the Franciscans generally in the 
fourteenth century, John Wycliffe with the Lollards and 
Hussites who followed him—all had got themselves into 
trouble by prying behind the veil of the official Latin Bible. 
The period of the Renaissance, however, saw a movement 
which the Church was powerless to suppress. New texts 
of both Old and New Testaments were discovered; new 
translations were attempted ; a new canon of criticism was 
applied by such eminent scholars as Lorenzo Valla. The 
serious study of Hebrew, with a view to the interpretation 
of the Talmud and the Old Testament, was undertaken by 
22 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


such men as Pico della Mirandola and Reuchlin. Special- 
ised research into the meaning of New Testament Greek 
was made by a long line of learned students, among whom 
Marsilio Ficino and Erasmus stand prominent. The his- 
tory of the Church was reviewed and revised with sceptical 
industry by such critics as the Magdeburg Continuators. 

It will be noted that this religious aspect of the Renais- 
sance was most evident north of the Alps. It was in the 
Teutonic countries—Germany, Holland, England—rather 
than in the Latin countries that the Renaissance took the 
form of the Reformation. 


IV 


The Teutonic countries had for some time been alienated 
from the Papacy. The causes of quarrel were mainly 
secular: they concerned such matters as political control, 
financial exactions, legal jurisdictions, administrative inter- 
ference. The medieval Church had become, especially 
under Innocent III and his successors, a super-state exer- 
cising an authority which reduced all kings and princes to 
a condition of vassalage. Papal legates dictated policy ; 
papal collectors extracted sums of money which sometimes 
exceeded the royal revenue; papal courts called up cases 
from the national tribunals; papal provisions superseded 
the customary rights of patronage; papal penalties reduced 
all resisters to submission. Under such powerful and 
impartial pontiffs as Innocent III Latin countries had, of 
course, suffered equally with Teutonic countries; and all 
of them, on the other hand, as a compénsation for loss of 
freedom and extortion of money, had’ benefited from the 
strong and righteous rule of an effective international 
authority. But both impartiality and righteousness had 
vanished under Gregory 1X and Innocent IV, when the 


23 


4 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Papacy became involved in its mortal conflict with the 
Hohenstaufen. The Germans—princes, priests, and people 
alike—had come to regard the Roman Curia as their 
deadly and inveterate enemy, whom no concessions could’ 
conciliate and no conventions bind. This view had been 
emphasised during the Babylonish Captivity of the four- 
teenth century, when the Papacy became French and the 
Empire German. The embittered struggle between Pope 
John XXII and the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian had not 
been a conflict of the medizval type between representatives 
of the two world-powers; it had been a Franco-German 
war of the modern sort. In this struggle England, under 
Edward III, had become involved. ‘The Hundred Years 
War with France, which had begun in 1337, had found the 
Papacy wholly on the French side and largely under French 
control. It had been natural, therefore, that Edward III 
should make an alliance with Lewis the Bavarian; should 
accept the office of Imperial Vicar for the Rhenish provinces ; 
should take German soldiers into his pay; should repudiate 
the tribute promised to the Papacy by King John; should 
limit papal patronage by the Statute of Provisors, and the 
appellate jurisdiction of the papal courts by the Statute 
of Premunire. John Wycliffe’s antagonism to the Papacy 
had commenced when, as agent of Edward III, he had gone 
to meet the papal commissioners at Bruges in order to rebut 
the papal claim to feudal overlordship over England, and 
to refuse the payment of the annual tribute which King 
John had promised in 1213. 

The Reformation began, then, as a political movement 
at latest as far back as the thirteenth century. It is not 
fanciful, indeed, to trace premonitions of it some two 
centuries earlier, as, for example, in the three rules of 
William the Conqueror, and in the fulminations of the 
Salians during the Investiture Controversy. It was the 


2.4 


& 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


revolt of the young Teutonic nations against the cosmo- 
politan authority of the Latin Church. In proportion as 
national consciousness increased, so also grew the unwilling- 
ness of laity and clergy alike to submit to the control and 
contribute to the support of an alien and doubtfully friendly 
power. ‘The force behind the revolt of both Wycliffe and 
Huss was not Protestantism but Nationality. Neither the 
Englishman nor the Bohemian was so much the “ Morning 
Star of the Reformation ”’ as the herald of the modern 
state. Both were political agitators rather than religious 
pioneers. 

The Reformation, however, had its religious side, but 
that displayed itself later. It was, indeed, a special feature 
of the fifteenth century. Just as the Babylonish Captivity 
of the Papacy generated national antagonism to the Galli- 
cised Curia, so did the Great Schism, which immediately 
followed the return of the Popes to Rome (1377-1417), 
give rise to religious opposition. The spectacle of two, 
and finally three, rival pontiffs, each claiming universal 
dominion, each anathematising his rivals, and each ex- 
hausting the resources of the Church in suicidal civil war, 
was one which shocked the conscience and shook the faith 
of Christendom. There sprang up a cry for the calling 
of a General Council which should restore unity to the 
Church, purge it of corruption, and cleanse it from heresy. 
The Franciscans began to denounce the worldliness and 
wealth of the clergy, and to proclaim the dogma of apos- 


tolic poverty. The Lollards and others, going definitely |). 


beyond the bounds of orthodoxy, denied the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, on which was based the supernatural 
power of priests and prelates, and preached the priesthood 
of all believers and the sole sufficiency of the Scriptures 
to be the guide of life. The way was made straight for 
the appearance and the pronouncements of Luther. 


oie 


~~ 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Vv 


When in 1517 Luther affixed his ninety-five theses to 
the door of the church at Wittenberg, both he and the world 
at large were astonished at the sensation which was caused 
and the consequences which were evoked. The theses were 
intended to be no more than a challenge to an ordinary 
academic disputation concerning an abstract theological 
problem. The subject, however, with which they dealt, 
viz., the ethics and the efficacy of Indulgences, was one 
which directly touched both the consciences and the account- 
books of the German people, and the controversy between 
doctors of divinity thus started developed into a war which 
involved the princes, nations, and races of the whole Euro- 
pean continent. The theory of Indulgences, when care- 
fully formulated in ecclesiastical Latin by theologians skilled 
in technical terminology, was not one calculated to out- 
rage the moral sense of a medizval Christian; it faith- 
fully distinguished between the guilt and the penalty of 
sin, and studiously avoided trespassing upon the exclusive 
sphere of the divine prerogative. But the distinctions of 
the professors were lost upon the pious proletariat, and 
the virtues and validities of Indulgences as they were pro- 
claimed by clerical travellers to credulous purchasers were 
taken to include not only remission of guilt but even 
licence to commit sin in the future. ‘They were a source 
of moral degradation and also of considerable financial 
extortion of a fraudulent nature. They were, indeed, 
primarily an extraordinary means of transferring large sums 
of German money to the papal treasury. Their object was 
not the spiritual consolation of the Teutons, but the relief 
of the temporal embarrassments of an extravagant and 
corrupt Italian Court. Luther himself had visited Rome 


26 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


a few years earlier (1512), and he had been horrified at 
that spectacle of secularity and depravity which had long 
destroyed in the minds of thoughtful Italians all respect for 
the highly placed clergy, and all belief in the creed which 
they prostituted to the ends of luxury and lust. It was to 
maintain this corrupt and worldly hierarchy that the morals 
of Germany were being undermined and its hard-earned 
wealth drained away. 

In challenging the theory and practice of. Indulgences 
Luther had at first had no thought of revolt against either _ 
Church or Papacy. His appeal was to the conscience of 
the Church and the authority of the Pope. Not till 1519 
did he realise how hopelessly the Curia had become com- 
mitted to the vicious system of extravagance and extortion, 
or how difficult it was for the Church to withdraw from 
secular sovereignty and temporal possession. His famous 
disputation with Eck at Leipzig opened his eyes; while 
Fck’s imprudent zeal and untimely dialectic skill drove 
him into overt rebellion by compelling him to appeal from 
the decisions of Councils and the commands of Popes to 
the teachings of the Fathers and the clear precépts of 
the Scriptures. The bull of excommunication naturally 
followed (June 1520). It was publicly burned, amid 
scenes of national enthusiasm, on December 10. Meantime 
Luther, in his three great Reformation writings, had (1) ap- 
pealed “‘to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”’; 
(2) denounced “ the Babylonish Captivity of the Church”’ ; 
and (3) expounded his conception of “the Freedom of a 
Christian Man.” ‘The German people was roused as never 
before. Ifthe Emperor Charles V had been a German he 
would possibly have been strong enough and unscrupulous 
enough to seize a unique opportunity of putting himself 
at the head of his subjects and converting his ramshackle 
empire into a powerful Protestant national state. But 


27 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Charles was not a German; and he was King of Spain, a 
country so zealously Catholic that any concession to heresy 
would infallibly have meant insurrection and expulsion. 
Hence Charles’s course was predetermined for him. His 
first Imperial Diet, held at Worms (1521), ratified the ex- 
communication of Luther and added its own ban. Papacy 
and Empire, the two great cosmopolitan and authoritarian 
institutions of the Middle Ages, were united to crush “ the 
Nobility of the German Nation” and to suppress “ the 
Freedom of the Christian Man.” 

Neither excommunication nor ban could be put into 
effect. Luther was protected alike from potent Papacy and 
impotent Empire by the princes and the people of Germany. 
Round him and his protest gathered all the discontents of 
the age. The Reformation became an increasingly com- 
posite movement. Politically, as we have seen, it was a 
revolt of the Teuton against Latin domination, and also 
a rebellion of princes and cities against Imperial control ; 
socially, it was a rising of the oppressed against their lords, 
ecclesiastical and civil; economically, it was a secularist 
assault upon the accumulated wealth of the Church; 
ecclesiastically, 1t was an insurrection of the laity against 
the clergy ; morally, it was a protest against the degeneracy 
of the priesthood and the flagrant separation of religion 
from ethics; theologically, it was a return to the New 
Testament, to personal piety, and to the simplicity of the 
doctrine of justification by faith; intellectually, it was a 
revolt of the individual against authority, and a reassertion 
of the right of freedom of thought. The strongest element 
in the Reformation, however, remained that which had 
been the earliest, viz., the political, The Reformation— 
that is to say, the disruption of medizval Christendom— 
was the first great achievement of the modern national 
state. It need not have been accompanied by a violent 
28 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


change in creed or by a conspicuous abandonment of 
venerable ritual. ‘That it was so accompanied was largely 
due to the deplorable accidents that Eck was injudicious, 
Luther outrageous, and Pope Leo X a worldling incapable 
of comprehending the issues at stake. But in any case 
Christendom would have been disintegrated, and Anglican, 
Gallican, Germanic, Spanish, and other churches set up, 
on the Byzantine model, under the control of national kings, 
Even as it was, Philip II of Spain and Louis XIV of France, 
good Catholics as they were, exercised hardly less authority 
over their clergy than did Henry VIII of England. The 
fall of the Papacy from its medizval eminence was as evident 
in Catholic countries as in Protestant. 

Whether a country should remain Catholic or become 
Protestant would seem to have been determined mainly by 
political considerations. For instance, England became 
definitely Protestant under Elizabeth in order to shake off 
its dependence upon Spain; Sweden became Protestant 
in order to recover its autonomy from Denmark; Scot- 
land adopted Calvinism in order to sever its embarrassing 
connexion with France; the Dutch Netherlands rose in 
religious revolt because they were determined to repudiate 
the political authority of Philip II]. In France the Huguenot 
cause was taken up by the feudal nobility and the auto- 
nomous Communes, in order that it might add strength 
to their arms in their struggle to maintain their medizval 
privileges against the encroachments of the centralising 
Crown; and it was this unhappy alliance of French Pro- 
testantism with what was a reactionary, unprogressive, 
anti-patriotic, and anti-national movement which led to its 
ultimate and complete extinction. Similarly, Protestant- 
ism in Spain identified itself with the unpopular causes of 
Moors and Jews, and with the anachronistic claims of 
ancient towns and provinces to impossible liberties ; hence 


29 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


it was suppressed by fire and sword amid the plaudits of the 
populace. 

It is noteworthy that before the end of the sixteenth 
century the permanent lines between Protestant states and 
Catholic states had been drawn. Since that time no state 
has transferred its allegiance from the one camp to the 
other. 


VI 


The immense changes effected in Western Europe by 
the Renaissance and the Reformation inevitably had conse- 
quences of profound importance in the sphere of social 
and political ideas. Medizval Christendom had been, in 
theory if not in fact, a unitary commonwealth under the 
dual authority of Pope and Emperor, each representing 
one aspect of the Divine Majesty wherein ultimate sove- 
reignty resided. Within that commonwealth the interests 
and activities of the individual were subordinated to the 
good of the Christian community asa whole. The fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries witnessed the break-up of that ideal 
commonwealth and the abandonment of its sacred com- 
munism. The Renaissance saw the establishment of the 
secular state as the primary political unit; the Reformation 
saw the emergence of the individual as his own philosopher 
and priest. Hence, obviously, political and social theory 
had to be completely recast to fit the new situation. The 
lectures contained in this volume give some indication of 
the processes of the thought of the period. Nicolas of 
Cusa and Sir John Fortescue lived in the fifteenth century, 
when peaceful and evolutionary reform seemed not impos- 
sible. Both of them contemplated developments of con- 
stitutional government which would not involve any breach 
with the past. Machiavelli bridged the two eras and, 


30 


THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 


wholly rejecting the medieval system, devoted his great 
powers and wide knowledge to the task of formulating the 
policy of the new national state. Sir Thomas More, faith- 
ful to the Catholic ideal, was eager to lessen the social 
hardships which the age of transition entailed. Erasmus, 
for his part, was anxious to ease the intellectual pains which 
the advent of the new learning was everywhere causing. 
Luther and Calvin, leaders of the revolt against the Papacy, 
were compelled by the necessities of their position to 
formulate new political principles for the guidance of their 


followers. 
Tue Epiror 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Acton, Lorp: Lectures on Modern History. 1906. 

Brarp, C.: The Reformation in Relation to Modern Thought. 1883. 
Burcxuarnt, J.: The Renaissance in Italy. (English translation, 1878.) 
Cambridge Modern History, vols.iand ii. 1902-3. 

Hupson, W. H.: The Story of the Renaissance. 1912. 

Huime, E. M.: Renaissance and Reformation. 1915. 

Oxrpuam, J. B.: The Renaissance. 1912. 

Pater, W.: The Renaissance. 1873. 

SEEBOHM, F.: The Era of the Protestant Revolution. 1874. 

SICHEL, Ep1tH: The Renaissance. 1914. 

Stone, J. M.: Reformation and Renaissance, a.p. 1377-1610. 1904. 
Symon, J. D., and Bensusan, S. L.: The Renaissance and its Makers. 1913. 
Symonps, J. A.: The Renaissance in Italy. 1875-86. 

Tanner, E. M.: The Renaissance and the Reformation. 1908. 

Taytor, H. O.: Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century. 1922. 


31 


II 
NICOLAS OF CUSA 


Novella in Florence are unmoved by the Dominican 

ideal of the Church militant and triumphant painted 
on the walls of the Spanish Chapel. On the eastern side 
are seen sitting on twin thrones in front of Santa Maria 
del Fiore the universal bishop and the universal emperor. 
On either hand are arrayed the great dignitaries of Church 
and Empire in a descending order; and at the feet of the 
two powers of Christendom are gathered the sheep and lambs 
of Christ’s flock guarded by the black and white hounds 
of the Lord. On the opposite wall is St Thomas Aquinas 
surrounded by angels, prophets, and saints; in his hand 
the open book of his doctrine, under his feet the heretics 
Arius, Sabellius, and Averroes in attitudes of rueful dis- 
comfiture. For his was the theory that perfected and 
rounded the Church’s all-embracing system of politics and 
culture, that Wunderkreise or miraculous circle of institu- 
tional life based on tradition, the sacraments, and world- 
wide spiritual jurisdiction, in which the believer was born, 
nourished, and conducted to the bliss that Andrea Orcagna 
had depicted on the walls of the Strozzi Chapel within. 
A little more than twenty years after the painting of this 
medieval system the fiercest reaction against it was raging. 
The Great Schism, attacking the very centre of unity, had 
broken out; heretical movements were aflame in Southern 
Germany and the Rhineland, while Waldensian congre- 
gations were multiplying in the eastern provinces of the 


32 


| Bee that enter the cool cloister of Santa Maria 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


Empire ;~ above all, there were growing up independently 
minded communities of radical individualists that took 
the Gospel and undirected reason as their guides, the 
“ sect-type ’—Wycliffe, Huss—which, in the distinction 
so finely drawn by a great scholar and critic, stands 
in fundamental opposition to the ‘ Church-type’ in the 
history of the Christian ideal working itself out in social 
form.” The republican organisations of the towns, the 
growth of national sentiment in England and (to a lesser 
degree) in France, the Land Leagues in Germany and the 
Spaniard in Naples, were proving too strong for the political 
claims of the Church, weak from the long years at Avignon. 
Her guardianship of the economic and the intellectual 
life of the people was passing into the hands of laymen: 
her moral influence was impaired by the fiscal rapacity of 
the Curia and the crying need for internal reform. By 
the end of the fourteenth century the great pictures in the 
Spanish Chapel bear the character of dream. 

To make the harmony portrayed in them a reality once 
again and so re-establish the moral and spiritual forces of 
the Church was the aim of the Conciliar Movement. Its 
history is that of a great and unsuccessful attempt to apply 
to one of the enthroned powers the enlightened constitu- 
tional remedies of the time, on the assumption that the 
Church, as a polity, was, in Gierke’s words, “charged with 
the mission of realising the ideal of a perfect political con- 
stitution.” ° To terminate the schism, to absorb the sect 
in the unity of the whole, to reform the Church in head and 
members by the method of universal representative councils 
—these were the means to the end; the remedial principle, 


1 L. Pastor, History of the Popes, i, 157-158. 

2 E. Tréltsch, Die Soziallehven der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, pp. 368- 
374. The ‘Church-type’ (Kirchentypus) is all-claiming, objective, institu- 
tional ; the ‘sect-type ’ (Sektentypus) is restricted to groups, subjective, mystic, 
dependent on direct personal relations with God and between its members. 

3 Political Theories of the Middle Age (tr. Maitland), p. 49. 


Cc 33 


1 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


the (to us) familiar one that no government is absolute, but 
is founded on the voluntary consent of the governed. This 
—which is in the last resort the idea of popular sovereignty — 
may have been derived partly from the peculiarly Germanic 
idea of the Fellowship (Genossenschaftsidee), which, to quote 
Gierke once more, is based on the “ aboriginal and active 
Right of the group taken as a Whole’”’;* partly from an 
interpretation of the Lex Regia by the Glossators, who 
found in the Corpus Juris the express indication that the 
will of the people was the source of rulership ;* and partly 
from the contractual element in feudalism with its inherent 
notions of compact and consent as the condition of the 
tenure of office or power.” Howsoever the idea was com- 
pounded, it is sufficient at present to note that many of the 
arguments which in earlier days were used by Churchmen 
against Imperial claims are now in a slightly varied form 
applied by their successors to the basis of ecclesiastical 
power. The novelty and interest of the experiment lies 
in the application of constitutional ideas to an institution 
which by its outward nature seemed, and in its inmost heart 
knew itself to be, antagonistic both to the principle and to 
the organisation they involved. Yet that way seemed to 
lie the only hope of reform. ‘The solution of the difh- 
culty called for the finest intelligence, the most far-sighted 
sympathy with the opposing positions. We shall see in 
what measure they were given. 

The subject of this essay made his contribution to that 
solution. Buthedid more: once the issue had been decided 


* Political Theories of the Middle Age (tr. Maitland), p. 37: 

* In the famous text (Dig., i, 4, and Imnst., i, 2, 6): “Quod principi pla- 
cuit legis habet vigorem: utpote cum lege regia, que de imperio eius lata 
est, Populus et et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat”’ (Gierke, 
op. cit., pp. 142 ”., 147. 

3 On the question of the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the Conciliar 
Movement some helpful remarks are to be found in F. von Bezold, ‘‘ Lehre von 
der Volksuveranitat,’’ Historische Zetischrift, vol. xxxvi, especially pp. 351-358. 


34 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


against his early line of argument, by a change of front 
often too lightly condemned he became a protagonist of the 
papal party. In doing so he was forced to depart for a 
time from the great aim of his life, that of harmonising 
conflicting tendencies in the Church. His career is of a 
man with a passion for unity and peace, which found its 
root in a philosophy of reconciliation almost Hegelian in 
its comprehensiveness; yet of a man not infrequently 
led by the stress of bitter and determined opposition into 
action inconsistent with that unifying thought. Herein 
lies a difficulty for our immediate purpose. A summary 
account, however careful, of one or two of his chief political 
works will only very partially convey an impression of what 
he meant to his contemporaries; the whole course of his 
life forms a study so helpful toward an understanding of 
the strength and weakness of the Conciliar party and the 
character of the papalist reaction that to stop short at his 
best-known work, the Catholic Concord—an essay of early 
manhood before the lines of his activity were fixed and 
while his thought was still fluid—would be inadequate. 
Moreover, in order to see him as he was it is essential to 
mark the dominant principle of his philosophy, a task which 
cannot be attempted if we concentrate solely on his political 
views. It is for these reasons that I have tried, too per- 
functorily, I fear, the way of biography rather than of 
‘ political science’; and in so doing must frankly acknow- 
ledge my debt to M. Edmond Vansteenberghe, whose 
work on Cusanus, with its thorough examination of the 
sources for his life and writings, no student of the early 
period of humanism can afford to neglect. 

Nicolaus Cancer de Cusza, as a Heidelberg document 
calls him, was born in 1401 at Cues, opposite Berncastel, 
ina bend of the Moselle. Not far from the graceful Gothic 
hospice of St Nicholas, his foundation and gift to that home 


S 


- RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of vineyard and meadow, can be seen the house where his 
father, John Khrypffs (or Krebs), a boatman, lived in 
moderate comfort. Nicolas, destined for his father’s trade, 
was to follow other paths. A passion for study led him 
at the age of twelve to leave his home for the house of the 
friendly Count Theodorich of Manderscheid, who in all 
probability sent him for his education to the Brothers of 
the Common Life at Deventer This was the institute 
kept by the successors of Gerard de Groot and Florence 
Radewyn, a school famous for its intellectual and moral 
standards, where the study of history and of the classics 
was not forgotten, and pupils were encouraged to read 
deeply and take careful note of what they read. The 
training there must have left its mark upon the future 
cardinal. At the age of sixteen he passed to the University 
of Heidelberg, matriculating the year after the Council of 
Constance had voted its decrees proclaiming the superiority 
of the General Council over the Pope, the condemnation of 
John Huss, and the institution of the first commission 
of ecclesiastical reform. Like most of their teachers the 
students of Heidelberg were enthusiastically on the side 
of Conciliar reform, and to some the Parliamentary régime 
foreshadowed at Constance seemed to hold out prospects 
of a career. But a young man ambitious to make a mark 
in Conciliar politics would first have to learn some law and, 
above all, the arts of the speaker. Such considerations— 
but doubtless also pure intellectual curiosity and the desire 
to breathe an air which has ever captivated his young com- 
patriots—may have led Nicolas in October 1417 to enrol 
himself as a student in the faculty of law at the University 


1 This has been contested by J. Marx, Nicolaus von Cues und seine Stift- 
ungen zu Cues und Deventer, p. 140. The view here is that of Vansteenberghe, 
Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, pp. 6 (note 3) and 7. On the Fraterherren see 
the article of K. Hirsche in Herzog’s Realencyklopddie, 2nd ed., ii, 678-760, 
which gives a bibliography. 


36 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


of Padua, a school famous for its canonists and also at 
the time for its scientists, mathematicians, and humanists. 
Vittorino da Feltre was there, probably Filelfo, and there 
too Giuliano Cesarini, whose noble features and distin- 
guished mind would first reveal to the young Teuton the 
meaning of the Latin genius. Padua was near Venice, the 
gateway to the East, which had among its professors a first- 
rate Hellenist, Ugo Benzi of Siena. At Padua Nicolas 
could listen to a well-known teacher of music and astrology 
(z.e.. mathematics and astronomy), Prosdocimo de’ Beldo- 
mandi, and to the scientist Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, to 
whom he was later to dedicate his De Transmutattonibus 
Geometricis, In this atmosphere he laid the foundation of 
that remarkable mathematical and scientific knowledge for 
which he became as justly celebrated as for his theology. 
In 1423 he took his doctorate in canon law, and in 1424 
paid his first visit to Rome, which Martin V, the Pope 
whose election in 1417 ended the Great Schism, had been 
busy for six years in cleansing and restoring, where also 
St Bernardino of Siena could be seen recalling the inhabit- 
ants to the virtues of the past. On returning to his native 
diocese Nicolas was given for his support a canonry at 
St Simeon at Trier and the cure of Altrich (though he was 
not yet in priest’s orders), and soon began to be recognised 
as an authority on canon law; so much so that soon, 
in 1426, he was discovered by, and attached as a secretary 
to, Giordano Orsini, the papal legate in Germany. Orsini 
was a good example of the opulent cardinal lettré, a patron 


1 One may instance his projects for the reform of the calendar in 1436-7 ; 
his corrections in the astronomical tables of Alphonso X of Castille ; his map 
of Central Europe (cf. A. E. Nordenskjold, Facsimile Atlas to the Early History 
of Cartography, tr. J. A. Ekel6df) ; his hygrometer (De Staticis Experimentis, 
p. 176) and experiments in weighing ; his studies in dynamics (cf. P. Duhem, 
Léonard de Vinci, t. ii); and, above all, the geometrical writings, the De 
Transmutationibus Geometricis (1450) cited above, the Quadvatura Circula 
(1450), the De Mathematicis Complementis (1453), and the De Mathematica 


Perfectione (1458). 
37 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of letters who contended with the young humanists in his 
retinue, often far cleverer than himself, in the pursuit and 
discovery of manuscripts of the classics. The post brought 
Nicolas the deanery of Coblenz and friendship with a 
number of Italian humanists; for the young scholar and 
researcher had aroused their curiosity by his discoveries, 
both real and imagined, in German libraries, the best being 
that ofa manuscript of Plautus containing sixteen comedies. 
Some of his eager correspondents he was to meet later at 
the Great Council which was to mark the turning-point of 
his career. 

For the turning to classical antiquity was but one aspect 
of the movement toward new valuations in the life of the 
spirit, which in the spheres of criticism and esthetic we 
call the Renaissance, and in that of religious thought, when 
it ultimately came, the Reformation. From the end of 
the fourteenth century the magic word reform had been on 
all lips. ‘The abject state of the Church during the Schism 
and the disorganisation of the Empire had either brought 
men to a sort of millenarianism, expectation of the end of 
the world and the coming of Antichrist, or had caused them 
to look forward to the betterment of society, to a reign 
of order, justice, and tranquillity. To the latter type, the 
optimists, not only the reform of the Church in head and 
members, which was urgently and universally demanded, 
but also the whole cause of international peace seemed to 
be at stake in the trial of the great experiment of reform 
by a representative council. The Council at Constance 
did at least restore unity; but peace had not been forth- 
coming. The question of sovereignty in the Church had 
been raised; and where some sort of federalism was the 
only hope, an absolutist Pontiff and an ultramontane party 
reacting strongly against the decree Freguens had made its 

1 Now Cod. Vat. Latin. 3870. 


38 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


appearance. Opposed to it, suspicious and intractable, 
stood a party of democratic leanings, which under the 
leadership of Cardinal Louis Aleman was to fight for the 
continued existence of the Council as the supreme organ of 
government and jurisdiction in the Church. It was these 
opposing forces which the presidential tact of Cesarini 
and the pen of Nicolas of Cues sought to reconcile at 
Basel. The task was formidable; for after the first session 
Bugenius IV, who in 1432 succeeded Martin V, issued a 
bull of dissolution which aroused the strongest antipathies 
among the extreme Conciliar elements, while the problem 
of the recalcitrant Bohemians was still unsolved and re- 
mained like a thorn in the flesh of the moderates. It was 
certain that the ultramontanes would call in question the 
competence of a council continued against the express pro- 
hibition of the Pope: it was equally certain that the radicals 
or democrats, heading for a nationalism in religion which 
spelled anarchy, would forget the historical development 
of the Papacy, lose the sense of unity which the primacy of 
Rome ensured, and try to break with the past. Thirty, 
however, is the age of courage and vast horizons, and, con- 
fident in his powers, Nicolas, summoned to it on other 
business, put forward to the Council of Basel at the end of 
1433 a reasoned statement of conclusions upon the power 
of ecclesiastical Councils combined with a programme of 
reform both in Church and Empire. Called De Concord- 
antia Catholica, the conclusions and the programme of action 
aim at achieving harmony between the warring interests. 
The point of view, however, is none the less definite, and 
places its author at the end of the line of publicists such as 
Henry of Langenstein, Conrad of Gelnhausen, Gerson, and 
Pierre d’Ailly, who prepared the way for the Council. The 
methods of these men were admirably characterised by 
Dr Figgis: 

39 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


They rest on a historical development of realised fact. “They 
appear to have discerned more clearly than their predecessors the 
meaning of the constitutional experiments which the last two 
centuries had seen in considerable profusion, to have thought out 
the principles that underlay them, and based them upon reason- 
ing that applied to all political societies; to have discerned that 
arguments applicable to government in general could not be in- 
applicable to the Church. Ina word they raised the constitution- 
alism of the past three centuries to a higher power; expressed it 
in a more universal form and justified it on grounds of reason, 
policy, and Scripture. ‘This is why it seems truer to regard the 
movement as medizval rather than modern in spirit.+ 


But there is perhaps a trifle more opportunism in the 
Catholic Concord; Nicolas is a profound student of the Fathers 
and of the acts of the early Councils, and he has his 
history at his fingers’ ends; ? he is ready to substantiate his 
views therewith, but his eyes are fastened on the assembled 
Fathers in the Council and on the antagonisms which 
he has to allay. He must conciliate the two tendencies: 
he must, as M. Vansteenberghe puts it, “ bind the present 
movement to the historical past of the Church ”’;% but he 
must also go forward as a man of his age who has been 
influenced by the spirit of democratic independence running 
strong in the Rhineland. Characteristically, therefore, in 
a work whose keynote is harmony and peace he seeks to 
unite past and present—historically, by pointing to the 
continuous inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Church 
throughout the ages; ideally, by demonstrating in mystical 
symmetry the complete interconnexion of each part of the 


1 From Gerson to Grotius, p. 47. 

2 Cf. his criticism of Marsilius of Padua for saying that there is no need 
to accept the doctors of the Church as authority except in so far as they 
base themselves on Biblical canon: ‘‘ Hec est perniciosa opinio post sancte 
Ecclesiz approbationem probabilium doctorum”’ (De Concordantia Catholica, 


II, xxxiv, in Nicolai de Cusa Opera, Basel, 1565, p. 775. Future references 
here are to the Basel edition). 


3 Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, p. 35. 
40 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


great Christian system, militant, expectant, trrumphant— 
and at the same time to advance the Conciliar interest 
through a critique of the nature and origin of ecclesiastical 
power. 

The Church, he writes, is a living unity. It is a fra- 
ternity,! united to the one Lord, from whom, “ the peaceful 
king of infinite concord, that sweet agreement or spiritual 
harmony flows in due order and proportion into all its 
subject and united members, that God may be all in all.” ? 
Tripartite in form, it is triumphant, asleep (dormientem, or 
in Purgatory) and militant ;% organic in constitution, it 
has spirit, soul, and body, the counterpart of which in 
heaven is the Trinity, the angels, and the blessed, on earth 
the sacraments, the priesthood, and the faithful. As in 
the heavenly, so in each one of these earthly divisions there 
is hierarchy and perfect gradation; in the sacraments from 
the lowest to the supreme service of the Eucharist, in the 
priesthood from the subdeacons up to the Supreme Pontiff,‘ 
among the faithful from counts and governors through the 
margraves, dukes, and kings up to the Emperor himself.® 
The harmonious symmetry, everywhere threefold, is com- 
plete. : 

To the sacerdotium, the soul of the Church, Books I and II 
are devoted. Just as in each diocese unity is secured by 
the bishop, so in the whole Church it is ensured by the 
Pope. He is episcoporum princeps, the captain in the army 

1 De Conc. Cath., I, v, 698: ‘“‘ Quoniam Ecclesia ab unitate et concordantiali 
congregatione dicitur, . . . ipsa ex fraternitate constituitur.” 

Pi; 692. 

3 I, v, 699. The connexion he gives thus: ‘‘ Dormiens Ecclesia, tanquam 
media inter angelos et homines, considerata est ut umbra angelice [1.e., 
triumphantis], et militans ut umbra dormientis: licet dormiens ab humana 
viatrici Ecclesia non separatur quousque traducatur in triumphantem.” 

4 I, vi, 700-vili, 703. 

5 III, i, 780: ‘‘ Cuius [the corpus] gradualis hierarchica ordinatio in unum 
principem, ab infimo simplicium laicorum, pedum typum gerentium, per 


Rectores, Comites, Marchiones, Duches et Reges usque in Cesareum caput, 
ex superioribus facile quisquam intelligere poterit.”’ 


41 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of Christ.1 His position, however, has gradually evolved. 
He holds his primacy in virtue of a definition of the Council 
» of Chalcedon, which having regard to the antiquity of Rome 
gave its bishop the first place and the bishop of Constanti- 
nople the second.? Out of the five early patriarchal sees 
the Roman in the course of time came to the head owing 
to its age, its dignity, its line of martyrs, as well as to divine . 
privilege® But when we speak of the Church we may mean 
not only the Pope or the Pope and cardinals, but all the 
churches united under and subject to Rome or Constanti- 
nople as the case may be. ‘The union of these churches 1s 
called by the Greeks a Synod, by usa Council. ‘The nature 
and power of such Councils calls for our investigation. 
Nicolas does it in two principal ways. He distinguishes 
carefully between the various types of Council; and he 
discusses the meaning of the plenizudo potestatis claimed by 
the successors of St Peter. No assembly, he argues, can 
be termed a General Council which does not comprise the 
Pope or his legate. ‘The Pope has the right of summoning 
- and presiding over the Council; but if having done so he 
refuses to associate himself with its work, the assembly 
may after due and proper interval (for it must never act 
precipitately) continue without him, although it cannot 
decide questions of faith without his participation; materia 
jidei Papam exigit4 But the expression ‘ General Council ’ 
needs definition. There are two types, which have not 
always been properly distinguished. There is the General 


1 I, xv, 708: “‘ Quare ita ut Petrus princeps fuit Apostolorum, ita et 
Romanus Pontifex episcoporum princeps, quoniam in locum Apostolorum 
episcopi succedunt. . . . Unde iste principatus est super omnes homines in 
Ecclesia existentes, qui per fidem constituitur, est enim capitaneus in eo 
exercitu.’’ S01, Xi, 700. 

3 I, xvi, 710: ‘‘Concludendum, existimo, Romanam sedem, ob seculi 
dignitatem, et divinum previlegium, et in augmentum fidei, ut pax serva- 
retur, et ob tot experimenta sanctorum przsulum, quorum successive plus- 
quam triginta propter fidem martyris coronabantur ; per Conciliorum statuta 
primatum merito possidere.”’ 4 I, ii, 712-713. 


42 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


Council in which the Pope sits as patriarch, the Concilium 
Universale Patriarchale, which is always subordinate to the 
Pontiff and cannot sit in judgment upon him unless he goes 
wrong in matters of faith, when he may be corrected by the 
anathema and the withdrawal of obedience ;1 and there is 
the General Council of the representatives of the whole 
body of the Church, the perfectissima Synodus, which is 
without doubt above the Pope. As Vicar of Christ the 
Pope presides over the whole Church, but his authority is 
of human, as well as of divine, origin, for historically the 
primitivitas or primacy, in virtue of which he wields his 
power, derives in part “‘ from men and from the canons,” 
as has been shown.? In the second place, the bishops do 
not derive their jurisdiction from the Pope. St Peter re- 
ceived from Christ no more power than the other Apostles; 
“nothing was said to Peter that was not said to the others 
also.”” From a jurisdictional point of view all bishops are 
equal, as they were in the days of the Apostles. The 
Pope’s superiority lies simply in his administrative powers. 
St Peter was, and so his successor 1s, maior in administra- 
tione—a very important point3 ‘The Pope’s position, 
therefore, is like that of the Principal or Rector of a uni- 
versity, who cannot legislate apart from his Senate In 

1 I, vii, 718-720. 

2 I, xvii, 735-736: ‘‘ Hoc nobis sufficit quod licet Romanus Pontifex ut 
successor Petri a Christo magna habeat previlegia et altam potestatem ex 
sede et Cathedra, que previlegia cum sede stabilia sunt: tamen primitivitas 
illa, qua Romanus Pontifex primus est omnium Ecclesiarum, partim etiam 
ab hominibus et canonibus est, iuxta superius dicta.”’ 

3 I, xill, 727-729. 

4 J, xviii, 739-740: ‘“‘ Verum quia universale Concilium est congregatio 
sive Ecclesia, de membris universe catholice Ecclesiz congregata, et repre- 
sentat ex hoc universam Ecclesiam : tunc considerandum est, quod Romanus 
Pontifex etiam habet figuratam et representivam personam, unius universe 
Ecclesiz.’? But the Synod’s representation is far less ‘‘ confused’ than the 
Pontiff’s, and therefore its judgment is more infallible: ‘‘ Non dubium quanto 
illa Synodus minus confuse plus tenendo in veritate representat, tanto eius 
iudicium plus a fallibilitate versus infallibilitatem tendit, et semper maius 


est iudicio unici Romani Pontificis, eum [? eam = Ecclesiam] confusissime 
figurantis.”’ 


43 


93a 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


the third place, the Synod represents more clearly and in- 
fallibly than the Pope the Universal Church which in itself 
possesses the power of binding and loosing and through 
Christ’s presence is indeviable and infallible. The voice 
of the Council is the unanimous voice of the Church Uni- 
versal, and this unanimity is a sure sign of the presence of 
the Holy Spirit within it It stands for the whole body 
of bishops, to whom equal powers of jurisdiction have 
descended. ‘The Pope is not the universal bishop, but first 
among the others ; and the authority of the Council is to 
be founded not in the Pope, but in the consent of all.? 
For it is by consent that leadership or rulership exists. 
Papal authority is derived from the consent and agreement 
of the whole body of the Church, and that body in the 
persons of its representatives may therefore, in case of 
necessity, and for offences other than heresy, take action 
and depose the Pope when he does not fulfil the adminis- 
trative function expected of him—when he is, in fact, 
inutilis’ Conversely, the Pope cannot change or resist the 
canons of General Councils, to which he is demonstrably 
inferior. This particularly applies to the decrees of Con- 
stance and of the second session of Basel. At first, it is 
true, there were doubts about the legality of these assemblies 

Ady 1A 71S 

2 II, xiii, 730: ‘‘ Papa non est universalis episcopus, sed super aliis primus, 
et sacrorum Conciliorum non in Papa, sed in consensu omnium vigorem fun- 
damus.”’ 

3 TI, xiv, 730: ‘‘ Omnis constitutio radicatur in iure naturali: et si ei con- 
tradicit, constitutio valida esse nequit. . . . Unde cum natura omnes sint 
liberi, tunc omnis principatus, sive consistat in lege scripta, sive viva apud 
principem est a sola concordantia et consensu subiectivo.’”’ We might almost 
think ourselves in the days of Rousseau. Cf. I, xv, 731: “‘ Constat omnium 
constitutionum ligandi vigorem consistere in concordia et consensu tacito 
vel expresso.”’ 

4 II, xvii, 736: “‘ Quis dubitare potest sane mentis, absque verze potes- 
tatis et privilegii sedis diminutione, universale concilium tam in abusum quam 
abutentem potestem habere pro sui ipsius conservatione et totius Ecclesiz 
salutari ordinato regimine ? . . . Quare universaliter dici potest universale 


Concilium, representationem catholice Ecclesiz, habere potestatem immediate 
a Christo et esse omni respectu tam supra Papam quam sedem apostolicam.” 


44 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


owing to the troubles and discords at their inception. But 
their eventual unanimity has been a clear sign of the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now the second session of 
Basel, in spite of the bull of dissolution, has held resolutely 
to its course and unanimously drawn the conclusion that 
the Pope is bound to accept the reforming decrees and 
Cannot suppress or change them. ‘“‘ The Holy Spirit has 
dictated the syllogism”: the Pope is therefore bound to 
obey the reforming decrees: he cannot quash them. Papa 
constituttonibus generalts concilit contradicens non auditurs 
The conclusion thus rests on a fourfold foundation: 
that the Papacy is an administrative function; that all 
power, spiritual as much as temporal, is dependent on the 
consent of the whole body over which it is exercised ; that 
that consent is conveyed through representatives ; and that 
the representatives of the whole body, in this instance the 
Church, are the Council. But the position is guarded with 
calm reasonableness. ‘The assembly at Basel must pro- 
ceed toward the Pontiff with the greatest moderation, and 
avoid all suspicion of arrogance. It must work peacefully 
for the interest of the faith and the good of the Catholic 
Church as a whole’ The concord must be constructive, 
and Nicolas accordingly proceeds to give his proposals for 
reform. The difformitas or disorder in the Church springs, 
he says, from our digression from the order handed down 


ENLL; &%, FAS. 

2 For the sake of brevity I have omitted the discussion of the Pope’s émieixeia 
or power of dispensation on grounds of equity ; he can only use it, Nicolas says, 
if there is really just and adequate reason ; it is because the Council of Basel 
found the reasons put forward in the bull of dissolution inadequate that it 
declared that instrument contrary to the decree Frequens (II, xx, 749). 

3 II, xx, 751: ‘‘ Quare hoc sacrum Concilium, absque passione cum summa 
mansuetudine se habere debet in ordine ad Romanum Pontificem, non se ex 
privilegio universalis Concilii in tantum erigat (de quo potius dolendum 
esset) quod obliviscatur subiectionis Patriarchalis in qua semper fuit, secun- 
dum quam in Papam fidelem nihil posset: sed servato debito honore cuncta 
pacifice in augmentum fidei, et divini cultus et universale bonum catholice 
Ecclesiz unanimi concordantia ordinentur, ut videantur opera nostra bona et 
glorificetur Deus pater qui est in czalis.”’ 

45 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


to us by the Fathers, from the failure of each part to do its 
duty. What is wanted is obedience to existing canons, 
not a mass of new legislation: zon defictunt canones sed 
executiones. He diagnoses accurately the sickness of the 
fifteenth-century Church—the absence of the sense of 
vocation, lack of governance, evasion of duty. ‘The 
Fourth General Council of Constantinople decreed that 
metropolitans must not exercise their offices through others, 
but must attend personally to their work, and not become 
secularised. That decree might well be applied more 
generally? The head of the Church and his subordinates 
must be united by a veritable spiritual marriage, and 
marriage implies consent on both sides; the faithful should 
therefore as far as possible elect their priests, the priests 
their bishops with the consent of their congregations, the 
bishops their metropolitan with the priests’ help, and the 
metropolitans their cardinals. To avoid the reproach of 
avarice in the Curia, all fees must be abolished: and 
instead there should be an annual collection to defray the 
cost of ecclesiastical administration.4 Most interesting 
of all is the proposal for a permanent advisory Council 
elected from the Provinces which should assist the Pope 
and Council when local difficulties called for solution. 
Commends and pensions should be abolished, the number 
of small benefices reduced by amalgamation, and pluralism 
reduced.® 

After the soul, the body. The third book is devoted 
to the Empire. Crvil society, of which the most preferable 
governmental type is elective monarchy, in order to be har- 
montous should be graded and articulated like the Church. 


1 TI, xxvi, 757, and xxvii, 759. ah xix, 962. 3 II, xxxii, 766-768. 

* TI, xxx, 763. The collection was already i in vogue in the Empire, but the 
State took the money. For a previous attempt on a universal scale cf. the 
transactions at the Council of Bourges, 1226 (Chron. Rogevi de Wendover, Rolls 
Ser., ii, 302). 

. ‘Il, XViil, 741-742. 6 II, xxxlii, 768-769. 


46 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


The “ King of the Romans ”’ is superior to other kings, just 
as the Pope is to his patriarchs. He is independent of the 
spiritual power and must not interfere in episcopal or 
pontifical elections; there must be no encroachment of 
the temporal upon the spiritual sphere or vice versa; and 
in this connexion he attacks the theory of the ¢ranslatio 
imperit and demolishes the myth of the Donation of Con- 
stantine+ Yet the Emperor is not unconcerned with the 
Church, for he is the defender of the orthodoxy taught by 
the clergy, and, just as kings convoke national councils for 
the reform of abuses within their domain, so the Emperor 
should perform that function for the Universal Church, 
if the Pope omits to do so; and in an assembly so con- 
voked it will be his duty to preside and to labour for the 
submission of those who resist its decrees.2. Here Nicolas 
is thinking of the Emperor Sigismund and the Hussites 
summoned to Basel in 1433. He then proceeds to discuss 
reform within the Empire, and in striking phrases pictures 
its decadence. Spiritual possessions have been absorbed 
by the temporal power ‘The Emperor is often the creature 
of the electors. Justice is set at naught, for the feudal 
defiance or diffidatio is used to cover naked declarations of 
war for selfish ends. ‘“* Mortal disease has invaded the 
Germanic Empire. Unless salutary aid is quickly given 
death will undoubtedly follow, and the Empire will be 
sought in Germany and shall not be found there.” ® It 
was true. ‘The stranger was at the gates. Slavs in the 
East, Burgundians in the West, were rolling back the 
Empire from the territories it had won. The defence de- 
sired by the princes was a loose federal autonomy under the 


1 III, ii, 782-783. He says he can find no warrant for it in history ; 
but, characteristically, he adds: ‘‘ Salvo in omnibus iudicio sacrze Synodi.”’ 
That a medieval German should find no evidence for the translatio imperit 
de Grecis in Germanos shows a critical spirit. 

PoUsil, xiv, 796; xxiv, Sos. STIL) Sax Sr2. * ITT) sxx) S32) 

SELL; cee, O19. 6 III, xxxi, 813 and 814. 


47 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


purely nominal authority of the Emperor; the plan of the 
Emperors was far greater centralisation. In a way the 
problem was analogous to that which beset the Church. 
Here again, just as he had wished to safeguard the authority 
of the Pope and of the Council alike, so Nicolas desired to 
find a middle term between Imperial absolutism and the 
rights of the princes—to reconcile the principle of monarchy 
with that of federalism His first proposal was a general 
diet to be held annually at Frankfurt in order to maintain 
the safety of the Empire and to provide for the judicial 
reform so urgently needed. For this he proposed a divi- 
sion of the Empire into twelve districts, in each of which 
should sit an Imperial tribunal of three judges, a noble, an 
ecclesiastic, and a bourgeois, whose judgments the execu- 
tive authority of the Emperor would carry out. The same 
diet must undertake the reform of taxation, and the simpli- 
fication of law and custom.2, There must be a new method 
of electing the Emperor;* he must be supported by a 
sufficient army maintained at public expense, for lawless- 
ness must be put down with a vigorous hand.’ The system 
of constant appeals from the secular power to the Roman 
Curia must be stopped.6 Usury, gambling, luxury in 
clothing, must be suppressed.® But the return to severity 
and simplicity must be done gradually and with discretion. 
The Emperor has to act the part of the lyre-player; the 
laws are the strings of his lyre, and should not be stretched 
too tight, but all to the right and proportionate intervals, 
if harmony is to be achieved.’ 


1 Vansteenberghe, op. cit., p. 48. 

2 De Conc. Cath., III, xxxv, 814-815. 

8 The plan is worked out in ITI, xxxvii, 817. See the discussion by Scharpff, 
Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cues, pp. 84-89. 

4 JIT; xxxix, 819-820. SL ils i B20, S lil siieer 

? III, xli, 824: ‘‘ Debet itaque citharcedus rex esse ; et qui bene sciat in 
fidibus concordiam observare tam maiores quam minores, nec nimis nec 
minus extendere ut communis concordantia per omnium harmoniam resonet.”’ 
Nothing has been said here of the treatise written by Nicolas shortly after 


48 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


It is a fundamental characteristic of medizval political 
thought that it refuses to be troubled by the discrepancy 
between idea and fact. Ifa divided and distracted Europe 
cannot realise the idea of unity in practice, it is the fault of 
man’s mortal nature; the idea stands immutable, unshaken 
by human experience. It is itself the reality, human polity 
but the shadow, the inevitably poor attempt at reproduction. 
Nicolas accepted the idea, and did his best to better the 
earthly counterpart; his was not the positive Renaissance 
mind in politics, that dethrones the idea, whatever philo- 
sophy may say, as soon as pragmatical tests have proved it 
unsatisfying. There were Renaissance minds all around. 
What disillusionment, then, was in store for the author 
of this calm medieval liberalism!+ A monument to the 
ideal of an organically harmonious Christendom, multiple 
in function, one in spirit, the treatise towers above the ambi- 
tions and antagonisms which it was powerless to reconcile. 
We must pass from the cool of the Spanish Chapel into 
the glare and noise of the piazza outside. 


Within four years the author was on the side of Eugenius. 
He had resigned his position as a judge on the Commission 
of the Faith which was preparing the extreme measures 
against the Pope decided upon in 1436 by a majority of 
the Council: and he had been to Constantinople as a dele- 
gate of the papalist minority to urge the claims of an Italian 
city for the meeting-place of the coming Council between 
Greeks and Latins, as against Avignon, the choice of. the 
the De Concordantia Catholica entitled Tvactatus de Auctoritate Presidendt 
in Concilio Generali, printed in Dux, Der deutsche Cardinal Nicolaus von Cues, 
I Band, Beilage 1, pp. 475-491. Of this Scharpff remarks (op. cit., p. 66) 
that it reveals no new standpoint. 

1 “ Its sweet reasonableness of tone, its lofty eloquence, the sanctified com- 
mon sense, which refuse to allow the absolute claims of legal rights upon a 


society which needs renovation, suggest a comparison with Hooker, to whose 
theory of law that of Nicolas bears a strong resemblance”’ (Figgis, op. cit., 


Pp: 70). 
D 49 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


majority. The transition is startling, but should not be 
set down to pure self-interest. Nicolas had, it is true, lost 
the case which he had originally come to Basel to advocate— 
that of Ulrich of Manderscheid suing for the archbishopric 
of Cologne against the papal nominee, Rabanus of Helm- 
stadt—and the defeat may have made him disillusioned 
with the assembly; he may, perhaps, have been tempted 
by the promises of a well-known humanist, Ambrogio 
Traversari, who was at Basel in October 1435 by order of 
Eugenius on propaganda work; but a more powerful 
motive must have been the fact that in 1434-5 the Council 
was attempting, with little or no administrative experience, 
and no realisation of the difficulties, to grasp the whole 
machinery of the Church, judicial, executive, and legis- 
lative, and was being led on, largely by the French radicals, 
to extreme courses without realising the consequences.t 
Nicolas was the very opposite of a revolutionary.2 The 
reform which he passionately desired was dependent on 
concord and could not be achieved by the more drastic 
methods of Cardinal Aleman ; and it is not surprising that 
when his delicately adjusted constitutional scheme gained 
no permanent attention he transferred his allegiance to the 
side of a bureaucracy which at least had the merit of being 
efficient, fully awake to the evils in the Church, humanist 
and enlightened, and chose the narrower and more effective 
method by which to try to bring his own country to reform. 


1 There is plentiful evidence of the extended activities of the Council in the 
notaries’ manuals published by J. Haller, Concilium Basiliense: Studien und 
Quellen, vol. iii, Die Protokolle des Concils 1434-5, which show its enormous 
agenda from day to day. 

2 Scharpff’s characterisation of the purpose of De Concorvdantia Catholica 
is apposite here (op. cit., pp. 70, 71) : ‘‘ Cusa war kein Stiirmer in der Kirche ; 
der Begriff von Reformation der Kirche, den das sechszehnte Jahrhundert 
aufstellte, war ihm ganz und gar fremd; sein Ziel war, die Kirche auf die 
gelautete durch Kirchengesetze geregelte Form, wie sie sich durch die Wirk- 
samkeit der ersten acht allgemeinen Concilien gestallet hatte, zuriickzu- 
fuhren und bei allen Verbesserungen nicht beliebigen Eingebungen zu folgen, 
sondern ‘die bewahrten Pfaide der Vater einzuhalten.’ ”’ 


sO 


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NICOLAS OF CUSA 


Looking back we might say that he chose the ideal of the 
ultramontane Papacy, the way of Antonelli rather than the 
way of Newman. Yet peace and unity were still to be his 
aim. The “ Hercules of the Eugenians,”’ as A/neas Silvius 
called him, was faithful to his mission of harmony. 

He was first employed in helping Cardinal Carvajal to 
reclaim for St Peter his own Germany, which had declared 
its neutrality in the struggle of Pope and Council. Every- 
where his arguments centred round the simple formula, 
“The Church is where there is unity, as at Ferrara and 
Florence, not where division exists, as at Basel.’’ It is a 
little sad to think that not six years before he had argued 
for the Basel assembly on very similar grounds. His 
advocacy was eventually successful. By 1439 he had 
attached to the papal cause the electors of Cologne, Trier, 
Saxony, and the Palatinate, and finally in 1447 came the 
abolition of German neutrality and adhesion to Rome. 
For this he was rewarded by Nicholas V with the cardinalate 
of St Peter ad Vincula and the next year sent as legate a 
latere to Germany, to proclaim the indulgence of the Jubilee 
which the Pope was preparing and to carry out the prac- 
tical reforming aims of his Catholic Concord. We was, his 
commission states, to establish social peace, redress doctrinal 
error, and correct moral abuses, by means of provincial 
councils, visitations of monastic houses, preaching, and the 
exercise of special judicial powers. All this he did with 
immense energy. For peace he strove by reconciling 
episcopal and capitular authorities in various places, by 
composing the quarrels of regulars and seculars, by smooth- 
ing down the differences between the clergy and the com- 
munes; and, while strengthening and safeguarding the 
powers of the bishops, he took good care to supervise and 
regulate the duties of their extremely unpopular henchmen, 
the archdeacons. He laboured vigorously for reform in 


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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


the monasteries: how difficult this was in actual practice, 
how stiff the obstacles put in the way of his decrees, can be 
gauged from the opposition offered to his reforming efforts 
by the Abbess Verena of the Sonneburg, whose bitter 
obstinacy was supported by Duke Sigismund of Austria, 
Count of the Tyrol. If Louis XI has been called the 
great spider spinning its web in the centre of the Christian 
world, the Count of the Tyrol may be represented as one 
of many little spiders spinning their webs in the centre of 
the Empire. With him Nicolas was to come into still more 
acute conflict when in 14.53 he took up the bishopric which 
he was to hold for the rest of his life. 

That year he was given the see of Brixen by Pius II, the 
famous A‘ neas Silvius Piccolomini, who had known him 
well at Basel and had remained on the Conciliar side some 
time after Nicolas’ change of front. The appointment 
was not to Duke Sigismund’s taste. ‘The Count of the 
Tyrol was seeking to enlarge his frontier at the expense of 
the bishoprics of Trent, Chur, and Brixen. On the vacancy 
of the latter see the chapter had elected a compliant tool, 
John Roettel, and the nomination of the ardent reformer 
appeared likely to frustrate his plans. He was determined 
to exact fealty from the newcomer: the new bishop was 
equally determined to hold his diocese as a principality. 
With the exception of a few periods of détenze or intervals 
when Nicolas was helping the Pope in the reform and 
management of the Patrimony, there was steadily increasing 
friction between count and cardinal for ten years, and 
in the end open warfare, league and counter-league, while 
the prestige of the Church in Southern Germany suffered 
not a little through the malicious appeals to German patriot- 
ism and anti-clerical sentiment spread by Gregory of Heim- 
burg, the able and bitter lawyer and opponent of Nicolas, 
in the employment of Sigismund. It is a melancholy 


§2 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


story. Naked acquisitiveness fought stubborn and pedantic 
legalism, for the peacemaking prelate cannot be acquitted 
of acts that were both provocative and tactless. Near 
the middle of the struggle he tired, wished to withdraw, 
but Pius was determined to make the affair of Brixen a 
test case. ‘The Curia fought Heimburg for the temporal 
powerand fought him over the author of the Catholic Concord. 
Once more Conciliar pamphleteering and propaganda, in- 
solent appeals to the princes of the Empire, and placards 
of gravamina made their appearance. Only Sigismund’s 
death (1463) stopped the campaign, and neither Nicolas 
nor his master lived longer than a year to enjoy a doubtful 
triumph. 

Yet it is to these later years that some of the cardinal’s 
best work, whether in mathematics, philosophy, or de- 
votional writing, is to be attributed. During serene in- 
tervals in the tiresome bickering with Sigismund he was 
pondering deeply the problem of religious unity. If truth 
or reality is one, the good one, God Himself one, and men, 
as he held, striving to become partakers in that single good, 
why are there so many dissensions about the way that leads 
thither, and why are religions, whose only aim is to point 
out that way, at continual strife with one another? Not 
only the dissensions in the Christian body itself, as, for 
example, the Hussite intransigeance, but the still more 
disastrous clash of East and West in the fall of Constanti- 
nople and the atrocities committed there by the Turks set 
him to think over the question. In September 1453 he 
tells us that after prolonged meditation he had a vision, in 
which he saw how the differences of the warring sects were 
permanently reconciled in a vast system of religious unity. 
The account of it he gives in the most imaginative and 
literary of his works, the De Pace Fidei, which reads like 
an epilogue to the Catholic Concord. If it were not in 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


dialogue form it would resemble a Platonic myth, where 
truth apprehended intuitively is set out in the graceful 
language of allegory. Olympus might almost be the scene, 
but the air is kindlier. The King of Heaven has just 
announced above the sad news which He has received from 
the earth. ‘The angels of the different provinces and sects, 
whom He sent into the world, appear before the assembly 
of the elect and supplicate for mercy and compassion on 
humanity. “Thou, Lord, hast been pleased to create 
man of the clay of the earth and hast breathed into him a 
rational spirit that in him may shine the image of Thine 
ineffable virtue; and though that spirit of understanding 
which Thou didst sow in the earth hath been dimmed and 
seeth not the light nor whence it arose, yet Thou hast 
created for him all things that stir his senses to wonder, 
that he may be able some time to lift the eyes of his mind 
to Thee, creator of all, and to be united to Thee in deepest 
love, and so at last return with profit to the source of his 
being.”” But, continues the speaker, man has multiplied, 
and with great numbers has come great diversity: almost 
all men have to lead a miserable and laborious existence; 
few have the leisure to use their judgment so as to know 
and seek after God. “Thus Thou has sent unto Thy 
people kings and seers called prophets to teach them in 
Thy name worship and laws, which they have accepted as 
if from Thee: to the different nations Thou hast sent 
different prophets and teachers, now at one time, now at 
another. But the conditions of human life are such that 
long custom which has passed into habit is defended as 
truth. ‘Thus have arisen no small dissensions when each 
community prefers its own faith to that of others. To 
our help, therefore, Thou that alone canst! For ’tis on 
Thy account, whom alone they venerate, that there is this 
rivalry in their adoration. For no one, in aught that he 


54 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


seemeth to seek, seeketh but the Good which is Thee. No 
one in any quest of the mind followeth but the Truth which 
Thou art. What asketh the living but to live, the existing 
but to exist ? ‘Thou art the giver of life and existence, and 
it is Thou, it seems, that art sought in different ways 
through different rites and art called by different names 
because Thou remainest for all unknown, never to be 
defined. Hide not Thyself, then, Lord: show Thy face, 
and all people will be saved . . . for if Thou shalt do this the 
sword and hatred shall cease and every ill, and all shall know 
that there is but one religion in the multiplicity of rites.”’? 
The King then speaks : He has given men free will, He 
has sent them the prophets, and finally He sent them the 
Word. What more could He do? But the Word made 
flesh takes up the plea. Although the Father’s works are 
perfect, yet because of the gift of free will and the fact that 
there is nothing stable in this world of sense, that opinions, 
conjectures, and interpretations are manifold, let the diver- 
sity of religions be brought to one orthodox faith? The 
Father assents. Wise men are accordingly summoned 
from every nation who discuss with the Word, St Peter, 
and St Paul the difficulties which will be met with in bring- 
ing their respective sects and countries to the unity of the 
faith. A series of brilliant dialogues follows, which show 
that Nicolas was more than a superficial student of com- 
parative religion and of national modes of belief. A Greek, 
an Italian, a Hindu, an Arab, a Chaldean, a Jew, a Scythian, 
a Persian, a Syrian, a Spaniard, a Tartar, a German, a 
Bohemian, and finally an Englishman appear (Pagan and 
Christian are jumbled up in a remarkable order) and raise 
difficulties which are satisfactorily answered, though some 
accept the replies with rather unconvincing readiness. The 
Arab asks how the polytheists are to be convinced, and 
1 1, 862-863. 2 ili, 863-864. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


receives the answer that even they assume the existence of 
Deity, which they honour implicitly in their various gods 
and which they recognise as the first principle of the uni- 
verse ‘The Hindu asks what is to happen to the idols, 
and when he 1s told that they must be broken answers that 
people believe in them because of the replies which they 
give. He is informed, somewhat ingenuously, that the 
oracle is usually given by the priest, and when this 1s 
known the people will not want idols? The Chaldean 
asks if by the Trinity is meant a God only metaphorically 
speaking three, for like the Arab he cannot understand how 
God can have aSon’ The Frenchman acutely asks how 
the differences of opinion on the purpose of the Incarnation 
can be reconciled:+ the Armenian raises difficulties over 
baptism,® the Bohemian (as no doubt he would) over 
the Eucharist,® and the Englishman, no ritualist, asks if 
other sacraments—marriage, ordination, confirmation, and 
extreme unction—will be insisted on. He receives from 
St Paul the wise and truly Catholic answer that allowances 
will be made for the weakness of men unless it goes against 
their eternal safety. All nations will not be compelled to 
accept the régime of fastings and abstentions: augebitur 
etiam fortassis devotio ex quadam diversitate." Perhaps St 
Peter might have answered differently. Finally the wise 
men are sent back to bring their countries to the unity of 
the true religion and to attend as plenipotentiaries at Jeru- 
salem, the “common centre,’ and there make perpetual 
peace. ; 

The enlightened theism, the strongly unecclesiastical 
character of the vision, may appear a little strange in the 
writer of the Letters to the Bohemians, in so prominent an 
ecclesiastical statesman. But it is in fact the inevitable 

1 vi, 865-866. 2 vii, 866. 3 viii, 867. * xi, 869. 
S Vi, (O97. 6 xvil, 877. ? xviii, 878. 


56 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 


outcome of his philosophy. Its characteristic is its rela- 
tivism. No single philosophical system can truly answer 
the question what God is, what His relation to the cosmos, 
why and how the world was created. Each system possesses 
a certain degree of truth, but each by itself is fundament- 
ally “conjecture.” Only through a study of the various 
systems can one have an inkling of “the unity of the 
unattainable truth.”1 ‘They participate in that truth, but 
not all equally; the criterion lies in their theories of know- 
ledge—their epistemologies, as we might call it. What 
then constitutes a probable theory of knowledge? Here 
we touch the keynote of his thought: a theory, he would 
reply, that is ready to rely on intuition, which can surmount 


ey 


~% 


° e e ¥ 
or, more accurately, combine contradictions, rather than 


on reason, which boggles at them. As early as 1440, in 
his De Docta Ignorantia, Nicolas stated the position which 
he was consistently to uphold throughout his philosophical 
writing: “ The principle of contradiction is valid only for 
our reason.” 2 He distinguishes fundamentally between the 
discursive reason, the ratio discurrens, which cannot admit the 
unity of opposites, and the intuitive vision, the intel/ectus 
videns, which perceives and admits it2 True and perfect 
knowledge is the knowledge which comes from the luminous 
insight of the iuze/lectus. And why not from the reason ? 
Reality (veritas) Nicolas understands in the metaphysical 
sense of ‘ being,’ making the two terms, as the scholastic 
philosophers did, interchangeable—ens et verum conver- 
tuntur; but as a Platonist he thinks of reality as God, in 
Whom all things are but participations. Reality for him 

1 De Coniecturis, I, ii, 76: ‘‘ Cognoscitur igitur inattingibilis veritatis 
unitas alteritate coniecturali.” 

2 “ Tout Hegel n’est-il pas en germe dans cette affirmation, et le seul fait de 
lavoir formulée ne fait-il pas de Nicolas de Cues un des péres de la pensée 
allemande ?”’ (Vansteenberghe, op. cit., p. 282). 


8 The whole of the Apologia Doct@ Ignorantia, pp. 63-75, especially p. 72, 
deals with this vital matter. 
$7 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


is not such and such a being, but infinite Being, unique, 
indivisible—God. But God, the xomen maximum, is above 
all understanding: how then can the reason understand 
things in their essence? Then again, on Aristotle’s de- 
finition, true knowledge is knowledge per causas; but 
the first cause is God, and knowledge to be perfect must 
include a knowledge of His infinite Being. Reason is 
inadequate here: the end of knowledge is hidden in God# 
Now reality is one, indivisible, without contrarieties ; the 
principle of contradiction along which reason works will 
not let reason consider it in its infinite simplicity. But 
the understanding—the izzellectus—can lift itself to that 
height. “It should be the profound effort of our whole 
mental nature to raise itself to that simplicity where con- 
tradictories coincide.” The reconciliation not only of 
metaphysical but also of political and religious antagonisms 
is attainable by the inward eye of vision. Within the 
systematic unity that is God the opposites are comprised. 
The coincidentia oppositorum is the main preoccupation 
of this remarkable man’s thought. It was unfolded in a 
subtle and profound system of philosophy, illustrated 
throughout by geometrical diagrams and elaborated with 
a mathematician’s care; it was shot with a mystic’s emotion 
and made high and holy with the devotion of a lofty spirit. 
But the politicians of the city-state and the Curia were to 
take little account of so transcendent a structure. There 
could be no concord when the invader came over the Alpine 
passes, or the galleys of Spain set out upon the unharvested 
sea, or the trumpet of a prophecy was blown at Wittenberg. 
Yet the constitutional doctrine which was its outcome is 


1 Apologia Docte Ignorantia, p.64: ‘‘Nichil perfecte homo scire poterit : 
finis enim scientiz in Deo reconditus est.”’ 

2 De Docta Ignorantia, III, xii, 62: ‘‘ Debet autem in his profundus omnis 
nostri humani ingenii conatus esse, ut ad illam se elevet simplicitatem, ubi 
contradictoria coincidunt.”’ 


58 


NICOLAS OF CUSA 
part of the legacy of the Middle Ages to the political thought 


of the West ; it was to be listened to again in its calm 
essential reasonableness, when the absolutist ideals of 
territorial rulers provoked their reaction. The forms of 
political organisation which it advocated soon died out of 
men’s thoughts; but its spiritual core, consent and repre- 


sentation, compromise without extremities, unity through i 


the conference board, is being fought for still. 
EK. F. Jacos 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


For a list of Nicolas of Cusa’s writings and a bibliography of general 
editions of his works and of monographs and articles upon his life and works 
see E. Vansteenberghe, Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, pp. 465-490, and ix—xvil. 
The literature is large, and only a small selection can be given here. 


A. PRIMARY SouRCES (PRINTED) 


Collected works: (1) Ed. Jacques Lefévre. Paris, 1514. 
(ii) Ed. Petri. Basel, 1565. 
Special editions: De Auctoritate Presidendi in Concilio Generali, in J.M. 
Dux, Der deutsche Cardinal Nicolaus von Cues und die Kirche 
seiner Zeit. 2vols. Regensburg, 1847. 
Reformatio Generalis. Ed. Ehses, in Historisches fahrbuch, t. xxxii, 
pp. 281-297. 
De Docta Ignorantia. Ed. P. Rotta. Bari, 1913. 


B. Monocrapus AND ARTICLES 
(2) General Biography 
Dux, J. M., and E. VansTEENBERGHE, U/ supra. 
Evckxen, R.: “‘ Nicolaus von Cues,” in PAilosophische Monatshefte, t. xiv. 
1878. 
Funk, V.: ‘‘ Nicolaus von Cues,” in Kirchenlexicon, 2nd ed., t.ix. 1895. 
Lone, P.: “ Nicolas de Cuse,” in Excylopédie des sciences religieuses (ed. 
Lichtenberger), t. ix. 1880. 
Morty, F.: “‘ Nicolas de Cues,” in Dictionnaire de théologie scolastique. 


1856-65. 
59 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Prantt, G. von: “ Nicolaus v. Cues,” in A//gemeine deutsche Biographie, 
CAV TBO. 

ScuarPrr, Fr. A.: Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cues als Reformator 
in Kirche, Reich und Philosophie. 1871. 

Scumip, R.: “ Cusanus,” in Realencychlopadie fir protestantische Theologie 
und Kirche,t.iv. 1898. 


(4) Special Studies 


Duuem, P.: “‘ Nicolas de Cues et Léonard de Vinci,” in Léonard de Vinci, 
t. 1. 1909. 

FaLcKENBERG, R.: Grundziige der Philosophie des Nic. Cusanus mit besonderer 
Berucksichtigung der Lehre vom Erkennen. 1880. 

Marx, J.: Nikolaus von Cues und seine Stiftungen zu Cues und Deventer. 
1906. 

Rossi, C.: Niccola di Cusa e la direxione monistica della filosofia nel rinasci- 
mento. 18093. 

Stumpr, R.: Die politischen Ideen des Nicolaus von Cusa. 1865. 

Uesincer, Jou.: Die Gotteslehre des Nicolaus Cusanus. 1888. 


C. GENERAL WoRKS ON THE PERIOD 


CreicHTton, Manpeti: History of the Papacy during the Reformation, vols. 
land il. 1892. 

Ficcis, J. N.: From Gerson to Grotius. 1916. 

Hauer, Jou.: Concilium Basiliense: Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte 
des Concils von Basel. 4 vols. 1896-1903. 

Pastor, L.: History of the Popes, vols. i-iii (Eng. translation). 

Pérouse, C.: Le Cardinal Louis Aleman et la fin du Grand Schisme. 1904. 

Vatois, Nort: Le Pape et le Concile (1418-1450). 2 vols. 1909. 

Voict, A.: Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini als Papst Pius II und sein Zeitalter. 
3 vols. 1851-63. 


60 


III 
SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 
|- is difficult for the average Englishman to think of, 


or even to remember, the Renaissance as a great land- 

mark or watershed in our history. Our thought turns 
naturally to literature rather than to any of the other arts, 
and we think, whether rightly or wrongly, of literature 
as a purely native product. The earliest poet we really 
know—Chaucer—gives us a gallery of brilliant figures, 
clad, it is true, in medizval garb, but alive and real as we 
are to-day, and endowed with that peculiar sense of humour, 
that gift of humorous understatement, which bridges the 
centuries and even the oceans. 

We cannot class Chaucer as pre-Renaissance any more 
than we can naturally describe Marlowe or Spenser or 
Shakespeare as post-Renaissance. The labels are meaning- 
less. The contrasted names merely remind us of the steady 
familiar growth of England. 

Yet in this list of lectures on political thinkers of the 
Renaissance we find two Englishmen, Sir John Fortescue 
and Sir Thomas More. Of these, Sir Thomas More almost 
gives the lie to what I have said above; he stands in the 
direct line of Greek and Italian influences; he zs the Classical 
Renaissance in England. Nevertheless, he would never 
have grudged an evening spent at supper with Chaucer, 
and Shakespeare, if not Marlowe, might have strolled in 
the garden with him at Chelsea. 

Fortescue is a different matter. He is the most out- 
standing and original political writer in England in the 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


fifteenth century. That is his claim to stand in this group. 
What then does he represent? Is he a medieval writer 
or a modern? What has he to teach, and where did he 
learn it? Is he a purely native product, or did he learn 
from years of exile to know the ferment of opinion that 
gathered around the Conciliar Movement and foretold the 
Renaissance? 

His choice as a Renaissance type seems to need some 
word of justification. 

One of the pleasantest of the minor diversions of his- 
torians is the habit of selecting national types on more or 
less paradoxical lines. It has been argued, in Oxford, 
that the four men really characteristic of England, who 
could have been produced or paralleled nowhere else, are 
Czedmon, Langland, Bunyan, and Cobbett—all men of 
letters, but humble men of small education. The more one 
thinks of it, the more the choice convicts one of truth. 

Another line of choice would illustrate that specifically 
English gift of prosaic, semi-humorous understatement of 
the truth of which I have already spoken, sometimes used 
for the purpose of sober self-justification, sometimes with a 
hardly veiled wish to exasperate a high-flying opponent. 

King Alfred’s reason for his scanty legislative efforts is 
the earliest example I know. “It was not known to me 
which of these might seem good to them that come after.” 
At the other end of long centuries is Burke: “I have 
taken my idea of Liberty very low, that it may stick to me 
to the end of my life,” or Dr Johnson’s “ Every lover of 
Liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because 
the chief county in England cannot take its representative 
from a jail.” 

There are links all through the centuries, especially 
perhaps among the lawyers. ‘A king is a thing men have 
made for their own sakes, for quietness’ sake, just as in one 
62 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


family one man is appointed to buy the meat. . . . If they 
have not what they would have one day, they shall have it 
the next, or something as good,” says Selden. Only a shade 
more serious is the poet Marvell’s pregnant and unequalled 
summing-up of the Great Civil War: ‘“ Methinks the 
cause too good to have been fought for.”’ 

It is to this line of Englishmen that Fortescue belongs, 
to this temperament that he is akin, though I am bound to 
admit that moderation is more marked than humour in his 
writings. If, then, Fortescue is a typical Englishman, in 
what sense was he a Renaissance thinker? Perhaps in the 
range rather than in the content of his thought. 

Now the Renaissance in England meant many things. 
We often apologise for our English Renaissance. It 
needs no apology. It was classical, scholarly, and sane ; 
it was literary and exuberant, if a little belated. It did 
not burn lamps before the bust of Plato, but Colet saw to 
it that the children he loved so well learned both Greek 
and Christianity with less thrashing than ever before. It 
produced music that was unrivalled in Europe. Even in 
painting there were two strongly marked lines in which we 
may trace a real renaissance. 

England had its vigorous aristocratic art, the art of 
patronage, of highly critical patrons, men who believed in 
the unknown painters of Richard II, in Holbein, in Mabuse, 
in Torrigiano the sculptor. Moreover, England had also 
a vigorous popular art, an art which preserved for us the 
peasant types of East Anglia and of Kent, and which, right 
up to the Reformation, beautified life with embroidery, with 
illuminations, with stained glass, carved ivories, and all the 
many arts and crafts in which medieval England had so 
widespread a reputation. Moreover, England developed 
Perpendicular architecture, letting in the light, and edifying 
the dourgeois. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Fortescue belongs essentially to the English rather than 
to the Continental Renaissance in the balance of his quali- 
ties and his interests, in his attachment to the things he 
knows, in his refusal to plunge; he represents that renais- 
sance of the ordinary citizen, of middle-class culture, which 
owed so little to the recovery of Plato, to the conquest of 
Constantinople, or to any of the traditional causes of the 
Renaissance. 

Biographically, Fortescue exactly represents the fifteenth 
century in England. He was probably born in 1400, or 
just before ; he died at some unknown date after 1476. 
He belonged to a Devon family, and may have been sent to 
Exeter College, Oxford. In any case, his education was 
mainly legal, at Lincoln’s Inn. He has left us a famous 
description of life and study in the Inns of Court, too well 
known, Mr Plummer thought, to bear quotation. But I 
believe the repetition of one or two passages may be par- 
doned. Fortescue begins by explaining that there were at 
least ten lesser inns, called Inns of Chancery, besides the 
four Inns of Court; the cost of living at one of these Inns 
he calculates at twenty-eight pounds a year; then he goes on: 

There is both in the Inns of Court, and the Inns of Chancery, a 
sort of an Academy, or Gymnasium, fit for persons of their station ; 
where they learn singing, and all kinds of music, dancing and such 
other accomplishments and diversions (which are called Revels) asare 
suitable to their quality, and such as are usually practised at Court. 

At other times, out of term, the greater part apply themselves to the 

study of the law. Upon festival days, and after the offices of the 

church are over, they employ themselves in the study of sacred and 
prophane history: here every thing which is good and virtuous is to 
be learned: all vice is discouraged and banished. So that knights, 
barons, and the greatest nobility of the kingdom, often place their 
children in those Inns of Court; notso much to make the laws their 
study, much less to live by the profession (having large patrimonies 
of their own), but to form their manners and to preserve them from 
the contagion of vice. The discipline is so excellent, that there is 


64 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


scarce ever known to be any picques or differences, any bickerings 
or disturbances amongst them. ‘The only way they have of punish- 
ing delinquents, is by expelling them the society ; which punishment 
they dread more than criminals do imprisonment and irons: for he 
who is expelled out of one society, is never taken in by any of 
the other. Whence it happens, that there is a constant harmony 
amongst them, the greatest friendship and a general freedom of 
conversation. 


In another passage Fortescue would seem to admit that 
it 1s possible to work in term time: 


Here, in Term-time, the students of the law attend in great 
numbers, as it were to public schools, and are there instructed in 
all sorts of Law-learning, and in the practice of the Courts ; the 
situation of the place, where they reside and study, is between 
Westminster and the city of London, which, as to all necessaries 
and conveniences of life, is best supplied of any city or town in the 
kingdom ; the place of study is not in the heart of the city itself, 
where the great confluence and multitude of the inhabitants might 
disturb them in their studies ; but, in a private place, separate and 
distinct by itself, in the suburbs, near to the Courts of Justice 
aforesaid, that the students, at their leisure, may daily and duly 
attend with the greatest ease and convenience. 


Fortescue’s legal life is tolerably easy to trace, and there 
are records of his gradual acquisition of property in various 
western counties, including the Manor of Ebrington, just 
east of Chipping Campden, where he 1s buried. 

The most vivid picture of a barrister’s life in the fifteenth 
century is to be found in the Paston Letters. It was a life 
alternating between rustic peace on one of his country 
estates, superintending the harvest operations; periods of 
travel and discomfort on circuit; and the ordinary law- 
terms in town, when the separation from his wife entailed 
a fairly frequent correspondence, in which she recorded the 
despatch of rabbits for his larder, and he explained why 
he could not carry out, with any precision, her directions 


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as to the purchase of dress materials. There are none of 
Fortescue’s letters extant, and one gathers an impression 
that they would have been less lively than those of John and 
Margaret Paston, perhaps also less full of strife and litiga- 
tion. But the general plan of life must have been much 
the same. 

By 1440 Fortescue was a Judge of Assize in Norfolk ; 
in 1441 he was made a King’s Sergeant, an office which 
brought him into close contact with the Council. In 1442 
he was a Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and he was 
knighted in the following year. 

From this time forward the fortunes of Fortescue are 
closely intertwined with those of the house of Lancaster, 
and it is impossible to follow them in detail. He was 
brought into close relations with the Council, with practical 
difficulties of administration, with popular risings, with 
problems of the royal succession, with the problem of the 
proper function of monarchy—and that too at a time when 
the King was a saint of the second class, a saint whose with- 
drawal from the world never issued, as with St Louis, or 
St Catherine of Siena, in an increased ability to deal with 
the worldly problems to which they returned. 

After 1460 Fortescue was constantly on the Continent 
in attendance on the exiled royal family, in Flanders, Bur- 
eundy, and Paris. After 1471 came a reconciliation with 
the Yorkists, the motives and explanation of which are not 
very clear. Apparently his work Juz Praise of the Laws 
of England was written for the edification of the young 
Prince Edward, while it is not clear whether his Moxarchia, 
or Governance of England was originally intended to embody 
the praise of Henry VI or of Edward IV. Mr Plummer 
inclines to the latter opinion. 

It is perhaps characteristically English that it is such a 
man of affairs, after such a busy practical life, who writes 
the political theory of the English Constitution as he saw it 
66 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


in the fifteenth century, and as it was seen again by most of 
the “constitutional rebels” of the early seventeenth century. 

The age itself demands a word. Stubbs has described 
the fifteenth century as futile, bloody, and immoral—more 
futile, bloody, and immoral than the fourteenth. Yet at 
least it saw one great development, in which England 
shared to the full. It was the age in which national 
languages fought their last fight and conquered; the age 
of a final general use of the vernacular tongue for all kinds 
of purposes. Miss M. Deanesly! has recently traced in 
connexion with the “ Lollard Bible” the general European 
demand for the vernacular Scriptures—a demand which 
was largely an outgrowth of the semi-secular religious life 
which was becoming almost more common than strict 
monasticism, as is witnessed by the numerous Third Orders, 
Brethren of the Common Life, Friends of God, and other 
loosely knit associations of mystics and ascetics. For the 
fifteenth century was not only the age of a commercial and 
financial religion ; it was also marked by a great widening 
of the stream of mystical life and literature. The great 
English mystics, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, Richard 
Rolle, and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing had 
already, before its opening, entered upon their heritage of 
“ English undefiled,” alongside of Chaucer and Langland. 

Following close upon the mystics, Reginald Pecock, 
best known by the attractive title of his chief work, The 
Repressor of Over-much Blaming of the Clergy, succeeded in 
bringing the theology and philosophy of Aquinas into the 
range of secular readers by writing in English; his temerity 
in making the attempt was perhaps his worst unorthodoxy, 
yet he suffered the fate of a heretic. 

So with Fortescue. In many respects he was still 
medieval, adding little to Aristotle, to Aquinas, or to 
Aquinas’ continuaior, the author of the De Regimine Principum. 

1 In The Lollard Bible (1920). 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


He is rather the typical Englishman living at the time of 
the Renaissance than a typical thinker of the Renaissance. 
Yet by writing his last summary of political thought, the 
Governance of England, in English, he fell into line with the 
great development of the century, and takes his place in 
the natural march of progress in England. He writes for 
the average citizen, for the man in the street. He might 
perhaps have used the politer, almost more natural, medium 
of French, but his residence abroad had convinced him that 
the French had corrupted their own tongue, which was 
now, he said, barely intelligible to men who knew the purer 
French of the English law-courts ! 

Fortescue was less original than Wycliffe in many ways. 
Yet in others he seems far ahead of his own days, and 
he makes a natural bridge between centuries. In some 
respects he is the forerunner of Montesquieu and of 
Bentham, and with close affinities to Burke. He thinks 
out the relationship between law and economic and social 
conditions, and between law and the Constitution. Seeing 
that a good system of law—far better than the civil law of 
the Romans, in his opinion—will not avail to avert disaster, 
he turns to the executive as the key to the position. To 
him, as to every other reformer of administrative methods, 
the question is how to secure an expert body of advisers, 
small enough to be efficient. His dream of a professional 
Council of twenty-four persons duly qualified for service 
in Church and State is not too unlike Temple’s scheme two 
centuries later. In the end the problem of an effective 
Cabinet has always solved itself, silently and as if by chance. 
Fortescue stood at the beginning of a long series of schemes 
and attempts. 


There are three main works of Fortescue which call 
for some detailed treatment—the De Natura Legis Natura, 
68 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


the De Laudibus Legum Anghae, and the Monarchia, or 
Governance of England. 

The De Natura Legis Nature, the earliest of Fortescue’s 
works, is interesting as containing the outline of his political 
theory; he explores both the nature and the origin of 
monarchy, and of the royal authority, and his conclusions 
embody a characteristic compromise between old and new, 
medizval and modern. 

St Thomas (or rather, the pseudo-Aquinas, as Mr 
Plummer calls him) had believed that absolute monarchy, 
dominium regale, was likest God’s authority, and therefore 
the nearest approach to perfection; although he admitted 
that a polity or a politic monarchy, dominium politicum, was 
better than tyranny, the rule of a bad king. 

Fortescue adds to these alternatives a third category— 
a kingdom both politic and royal—dominium politicum et 
regale. ‘This kingdom he finds actually existing: “For 
in the kingdom of England the kings make not laws, nor 
impose subsidies upon their subjects, without the consent 
of the three estates of the Realm. Nay, even the Judges 
of that kingdom are all bound by their oaths not to 
render judgment against the laws of the land, although 
they should have the command of the sovereign to the 
contrary.” 

These are the three tests of conditions of a “politic king- 
dom” to which Fortescue remains firm throughout his 
writings. But he admits that a politic king must on 
occasion rule royally ; that is, he must have an emergency 
power. Equity also must be left to his sagacity. He 
departs from one of the classical medizval doctrines by 
arguing that the State 1s not an evil in itself, and that the 
earliest ages were not golden. MHis picture of primitive 
society might well have inspired Hobbes, to whom the life 
of man in a state of nature was “ solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, 


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and short.” Fortescue declares that “‘ the pride of Nimrod 
first usurped dominion over men, and yet nothing better 
or more convenient than these things could have befallen 
the human race, inasmuch as if all things had remained 
common as before, and there had been no dominion over 
men upon earth, public affairs after men’s sin would have 
been managed very ill for man, and for want of justice the 
human race would have torn itself to pieces in mutual 
slaughter.” He quotes with approval the Aristotelian 
doctrine that man is by nature a social and political animal, 
and he ingeniously combines the two views of the origin 
of the State: ‘‘ Thus did kingly supremacy get its origin 
and being, although under or from unbelievers, yet naturally 
and by the institution of Nature’s Law.” The lawof nations 
he defines to be certain of the laws of nature which the 
nations have adopted which were so convenient for them 
that without them they could not live rightly. 

The second part of the treatise is a technical discussion 
of the laws of succession, which takes the form of a highly 
anti-feminist manifesto, with arguments of this kind—in 
the form of a dialogue: 

“Who ever hunts hares with cats? Nature disposes 
greyhounds for the fields and the pursuit of hares, but cats 
for staying at home to catch mice. It isa shame... to 
draw away from home for the purpose of governing nations, 
the woman whom nature has fitted for domestic duties.” 
Fortescue would have objected to both Queen Elizabeth and 
Queen Victoria, but chiefly perhaps to the latter! 

The lady of the dialogue replies at last: °°...) 
not, as my Uncle supposes, consider him to have given a 
satisfactory answer by his reasons to the points which he 
has stated; nevertheless . . . fearing lest his gravity be 
tired out by a further lengthening of this argument, I do 
not intend to make any further reply.” 


79 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


Mr Plummer remarks that this work lacks the primary 
condition of success, namely, readableness! 

The De Laudibus Legum Anglie was written some years 
later, in a far less pedantic and academic style, though still 
in Latin. Fortescue had advanced beyond merely repeating 
the old formula, Nolumus leges Anglie mutare; he was pre- 
pared to defend his opinion by a reasoned defence of Eng- 
lish law as against the civillaw. It is curious that Maitland 
seems to have interested himself so little in Fortescue. In 
his Rede Lecture on English Law and the Renaissance 
he discusses at length the apparent prospect of a “re- 
ception” of Roman law in England during the sixteenth 
century, parallel to the reception which formed the third 
R in German history. Yet he never mentions the fact— 
possibly because it was so familiar to him—that Fortescue 
had foreseen the possibility of such a reception in England 
and had fully discussed it, and rejected it, before 1470. 
Moreover, Fortescue had suggested the very reason which 
Maitland adduces for the survival of English law—the 
excellence of the organisation and the teaching in the Inns 
of Court. Maitland says, it may be remembered, “* We 
may well doubt whether aught else could have saved English 
law in the age of the Renaissance.” 

The Praise of the Laws of England is written in the form 
of a dialogue between an aged Chancellor and a young 
Prince. It therefore forms a treatise on the duty and 
business of a prince, comparable in part with Machiavelli’s 
The Prince, or with James I’s Basilicon Doron. An English- 
man would be apt to say that it compares very favourably 
with either. It provides a perfect storehouse of maxims 
which the lawyers were not slow to use against the Stuarts. 
The Chancellor begins by exhorting the Prince to study 
the laws, as he had studied martial exercises, for the sake of 
his people; the Prince retorts with a mild objection that 


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although he admits that Deuteronomy contains a law of 
divine institution, “ yet the law to the study whereof you 
now invite me is merely human, derived from human 
authority.” ‘The Chancellor then defines his position 
clearly: “Be pleased to know then, that not only the 
Deuteronomical, but also all human laws are sacred, the 
definition of the law being this: ‘It is a holy sanction, 
commanding whatever is honest, and forbidding the con- 
trary. And that must needs be holy which is so in its 
definition.” 

The great reason for the study of the law, the Chancellor 
goes on, is that the Prince may attain to felicity and happi- 
ness so far as possible in this life. Human laws are no 
other than rules whereby the perfect notion of justice can 
be determined—that justice which is virtue absolute and 
perfect, and therefore the summum bonum or beatitude, so 
that, having attained this justice, a man may be said to be 
made happy by the laws. 

Another less exalted reason for studying the laws is that 
the Prince might be surprised and think them very queer, 
if he did not know them, whereas ‘‘ Use becomes a second 
nature!” 

The Prince must study to acquire a habit of justice, a 
genuine reputation as a just prince, not merely an external 
reputation such as Machiavelli seems to advocate. ‘There- 
upon the Prince makes bold to ask which law he must 
study, and by what method. He is instructed, very firmly, 
that all he needs is a general knowledge of the principles 
of law, not the close study of twenty years which is necessary 
to make a judge—for the giving of judgments belongs to 
the judges, and not to the king. (Fortescue’s attitude on 
this point may well be compared with the point of view of 
James I, both in his Basilicon Doron and also in his dealings 
with the judges.) ‘The law which the Prince must study 
72 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


is equally firmly laid down; excellent though the civil law 
may be, in those countries or states to which it belongs, yet 
the king of England has no power to alter the law of his 
kingdom, for a politic king cannot change the law but by 
the consent of the people. At this point Fortescue cau- 
tiously throws over Aristotle. His view stands in sharp 
contrast with that of Richard II, or Cardinal Pole or 
James I. 

The intelligent young Prince now inquires why there are 
two kinds of kingdoms, absolute and politic; the Chan- 
cellor goes a stage farther than in the earlier treatise, and 
explains that absolute monarchy originates in conquest, 
while he quotes St Augustine to prove the origin of the 
politic kingdom in a pact, or consent of right, entered upon 
by the people for the sake of the common good. The 
nature of the State thus created is determined by the object 
and intention of the compact. In the body politic the first 
thing which lives and moves is “ the intention of the people, 
having it in the blood, that is, the prudential care and pro- 
vision for the public good, which it transmits . . . to the 
head as the principal part.’ The king “is appointed to 
protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws, 
for this very end and purpose he has the delegation of power 
from the people, and he has no just claim to any power 
but this.” The body politic, thus formed, is a mystical 
body. Fortescue was in no danger of being led astray by 
his metaphor; he states clearly from the beginning what 
the ‘ organic’ view of society means to him. 

The Chancellor goes on to treat of the statute law of 
England, having set aside the law of nature and custom. 
English statute law, he declares, is necessarily wise, since 
it is created by the consent of the whole kingdom, From 
this point onward he enters upon an elaborate comparison 

1 See Starkey’s Dialogue. 


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between the civil law and the law of England, always greatly 
to the advantage of the latter. Into the technicalities of his 
argument it is not necessary to go farther. It is more to 
our purpose to note the points at which his outlook seems 
strikingly modern rather than typical of the Renaissance. 

He admits, for example, that torture was used at times in 
England, but he adds: “ For my own part, I see not how 
it is possible for the wound which such a judge [who permits 
torture] must give his own conscience, ever to close up or 
be healed; as long, at least, as his memory serves him to 
reflect upon the bitter torture so unjustly and inhumanly 
inflicted on the innocent.” 

He is singularly modern, too, in his remark on the effect 
of torture upon the torturers: “‘ The execution of the sen- 
tence of the law upon criminals is a task fit only for little 
villains [ignzobiles] to perform, picked out from among the 
refuse of mankind.” 1 A probable miscarriage of justice, 
on circuit, haunted his memory for years. 

Fortescue is very emphatic in his preference for a jury 
system above anything that the civil law could offer. Yet 
he saw clearly enough that there was no absolute perfection 
in the system, that it depended largely upon the existence 
of a stable, independent, and prosperous social order. It 
could not be transported into France. This argument 
gives occasion for a famous description of England’s pros- 
perity, which, rose-coloured though it be, bears yet a sub- 
stantial testimony to the condition of the country. It is 
the more remarkable when we remember that Fortescue 


had just lived through the Wars of the Roses. 


England is a country so fertile, that, comparing it acre for acre, 
it gives place to no one other country: it almost produces things 
spontaneous, without man’s labour or toil. The fields, the plains, 


1 The apparent vigour of Fortescue’s language owes much to his eighteenth- 
century translator. 


74 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


groves, woodlands, all sorts of lands spring and prosper there so 
quick, they are so luxuriant, that even uncultivated spots of land 
often bring in more profit to the occupant than those which are 
manured and tilled ; though those too are very fruitful in plentiful 
crops of corn. ‘The feeding lands are likewise enclosed with 
hedgerows and ditches, planted with trees which fence the herds 
and flocks from bleak winds and sultry heats, and are for the most 
part so well watered, that they do not want the attendance of the 
hind, either day or night. ‘There are neither wolves, bears, nor 
lions in England ; the sheep lie out a nights without their shep- 
herds, penned-up in folds, and the lands are improving at the same 
time ; whence it comes to pass, that the inhabitants are seldom 
fatigued with hard labour ; they lead a life more spiritual and refined. 


The inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the necessaries 
and conveniences of life. They drink no water, unless at certain 
times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance. “They 
are fed, in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish, of 
which they have plenty everywhere: they are clothed throughout 
in good woollens: their bedding and other furniture in their 
houses are of wool, and that in great store: they are also well 
provided with all other sorts of household goods and necessary 
implements for husbandry: every one, according to his rank, hath 
all things which conduce to make life easy and happy. 


There are other interesting passages which illustrate the 
condition of the English law of bondage—of serfdom, or 
of slavery—during the fifteenth century, the period when 
serfdom, in fact, was rapidly disappearing. Fortescue 
has a habit of keeping close to the facts, of showing how 
economic facts and social conditions form the basis of law 
and legal principles; in this he belongs emphatically to 
the historical school of political thought, and would have 
delighted the heart of Bodin, of Montesquieu, of Burke. 
There is nothing ‘ high-flown’ about Sir John Fortescue. 

The very natural question of the Prince as to why English 
law was not studied in the universities leads the Chancellor 
on to the quaint description of the Inns of Court, from which 


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I have already quoted. He gives much curious informa- 
tion about the Inns and their methods of procedure, 
and finally justifies even “the law’s delay”’ by pointing 
out how much more convenient it is not to be hanged too 
promptly ! 

In the last chapter the Prince puts a characteristic gloss 
upon the saying of the doctors of the law: “Imperator gerit 
omnia iura sua in scrinio pectoris sui. . . . Not that he 
actually knows all the laws, but as he apprehends the prin- 
ciples of them, their method and nature, he may properly 
enough be said to understand them all.” Fortescue’s 
respect for the civil law, when combined with his regard for 
the English Constitution, seems almost to lead him into 
that perilous pastime known as running with the hare and 
hunting with the hounds. He reconciles the irreconcilable. 
On this note he ends what is probably the first work on 
comparative jurisprudence written in England, if not in 
Europe. 

The Monarchia, or Governance of England is the latest of 
Fortescue’s writings: it is written in English and is even 
more practical than the Praise of the Laws, and it approaches 
more nearly than either of his previous works the form and 
colour of a political pamphlet. In its practical sugges- 
tions, and its analysis of the present discontents, it is new; 
in its political theory it merely repeats the principles of 
the two earlier treatises. 

The author distinguishes once again the two kinds of 
kingdom, the dominium regale and the dominium politicum 
et regale, ignoring the dominium politicum of which he had 
previously written. He recapitulates his own description 
of their respective powers and their different origins; he 
argues once more that the absolute king possesses nothing 
which is not possessed by the politic king, save the power 
to do wrong. And this is really no added power: “To 


76 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


be able to sin is not power or liberty, no more than to be 
able to grow old or rotten.”’ 

From theory Fortescue turns to facts—the wealth or 
poverty of England or France, and the respective revenues 
of their kings. Poverty is the worst of sins in a king, for, 
as Aristotle said in the Exhics, ‘‘it is impossible for a poor 
man to do good works.” Fortescue goes on to a close 
analysis of the king’s ordinary and extraordinary charges, 
which throws interesting light upon the administration in 
the fifteenth century. The “ king’s charges” actually im- 
plies the whole public revenue, and hence under this head 
Fortescue is able to discuss the keeping of the Marches, 
or the need for a navy to keep off rovers, to protect 
merchants, and to save the country from invasion. The 
extraordinary charges differ little from the ordinary, save 
that they are irregular or unexpected. ‘They imply the 
need for an emergency power, such as Fortescue had spoken 
of in the De Natura Legis Nature, when he declared that a 
politic king must sometimes act regally. A sudden in- 
vasion, for example, must be met out of the king’s own 
coffers, before he can have any aid from his people. All 
this part of Fortescue’s work is ostensibly practical, not 
theoretical—but occasionally a practical difficulty involves 
the definition of an abstract right. 

The king’s function may best be defined in borrowing 
the papal title Servus servorum Dei, but the people, in re- 
turn, must remember that the labourer is worthy of his 
hire. This argument leads on, naturally enough, to the 
well-known description of the over-mighty subject, and 
the danger he may prove to the king. Fortescue is rather 
optimistic in his view of the motives behind this over- 
powerful rival: ‘‘ Man’s courage is so noble, that naturally 
he aspireth to high things.” But Fortescue was apt to 
impute high motives; even the multitude of thieves yearly 


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hanged in England proves, not the dishonesty of the 
English nor the vigour of their judges, but only their 
high spirit, so infinitely greater than that of the French, 
of whom few indeed had spirit enough to steal, still less 
to be hanged for it! Fortescue’s experiences in Scotland 
seem to have been impressive, for he asserts that there is 
no man hanged in Scotland in seven years for robbery ; 
the hearts of Scotsmen will not serve them to go beyond 
larceny ! 

Fortescue also discusses the parallel question whether 
it was wise to keep the commons poor in order that they 
should be unable to rebel. He supplies two answers to 
his own question: first, England’s strength lay in her 
archers, and if the class from which the archers were re- 
cruited was enfeebled by poverty the State would lose its 
best line of defence; secondly, poor men are always the 
most ready to risk a rising, “and thrifty men have been 
loath thereto, for dread of losing their goods.” If they 
do join it is for fear that the poor will take their goods by 
force. Fortescue again insists on having the argument 
on his side, whatever the facts. Men will rise, he says, 
“for lack of goods, or for lack of justice. But certainly 
when they lack goods, they will rise, saying that they lack 
justice.” Fortescue belongs to the group who, with Sully, 
believe that risings are caused by “impatience de souffrir,” 
and not to those complacent followers of Hobbes, who 
believe that ‘‘ men be most troublesome when they be most 
at ease.”’ It is in this detailed social outlook that Fortescue 
is most in advance of his times, and yet his whole attitude 
is curiously unlike that of the typical Renaissance statesman. 

The second main question in T’he Governance of England 
is the appointment and composition of the king’s Council. 
This is a strictly practical question, in which Fortescue is 
drawing almost entirely upon experience, and finds little 


78 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


help in the scholastic authorities on politics. Indeed, the 
chapters which deal with this subject quote no authorities 
whatever, save the one maxim from the Gospels: ‘‘ No man 
can serve two masters.” 

Fortescue’s main objects in his reformation of the Council 
were, first, to obtain men devoted to the service of the State 
rather than to their own ends; secondly, to obtain men 
who should be expert counsellors; and, thirdly, to reduce 
the Council to a manageable size. His first scheme con- 
templates a body of thirty-two men, of whom twenty-four 
commoners are permanent councillors, and eight lords, 
spiritual and temporal, who change every year; a second 
scheme proposes only twenty. Their work was to be partly 
administrative and partly deliberative, and they were to 
prepare legislative business for the Parliament and thereby 
save much valuable time. 

Fortescue shows very clearly how well he understands 
the difficulty of securing an efficient, honest, and faithful 
executive; he is laying down the lines on which first the 
Tudor Council, and secondly the modern Cabinet, have 
needed to be developed. He knows perfectly well that 
no politic king can keep the executive solely in his own 
hands, and he recognises that the traditional Council is out 
of date. Yet he is singularly cautious; he never discusses 
the details of representative government, the limits of 
citizenship, or the methods by which consent might be 
given. He makes no use of the precedent of the minority 
of Henry VI, when the Council was chosen in Parliament. 
He is essentially not a theorist, but a man driven now and 
again to evolve a theory which should provide a perma- 
nent basis for his desired reforms. He prefers to speak 
about the case before him, rather than to judge abstract 
questions. 


He seldom reaches any very high level of thought; he 
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was a plain man, that loved his country. But that love 
was so strong that at last it roused him to eloquence. In 
what is essentially his last chapter (xx) he describes what 
great good will come of the firm endowing of the Crown— 
of a satisfactory provision for a revenue, as we should say. 
“The king who should make such an endowment shall do 
thereby daily more alms than shall be done by all the founda- 
tions that ever were made in England, and by reason of 
this foundation all men shall every day be the merryer, the 
surer, and shall fare the better in his body and all his goods. 
For this shall be a College in which shall sing and pray 
for evermore all the men of England spiritual and temporal.” 
“We shall now,” he concludes, “ live under justice, which 
we have not done of long time, God knoweth.” 

The cobbler sticks to his last, even to the end, and the 
judge, who had troubled himself so often over the fate of 
the innocent, can only talk of politics or of religion in terms 
of justice. Practical though he was, he moved a little 
uneasily in an atmosphere of expediency. It is hardly pos- 
sible to read Fortescue without seeking, at every turn, to 
remember some sharply contrasted dictum of Machiavelli. 

It would be natural to seek further light upon Fortescue’s 
personality in the fragmentary evidence of the Year-Books. 
If it has been possible to reconstruct the witty, irascible, 
homely temperament of Sir William Bereford, Chief Justice 
in Edward II’s reign, surely a century later there should 
be signs of the character and influence of one of the greatest 
English judges. Lord Clermont, in the Collected Works 
of Fortescue, has brought together a large number of pas- 
sages from the Year-books in which Fortescue’s opinions 
or decisions are quoted. But they are singularly colour- 
less ; nothing comparable to Bereford emerges. Fortescue 
remains, when one has gone through them, wise, measured, 
sensible, moderate, just, and even kindly, yet without 
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SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


humour. But the reader knows no more of Fortescue the 
man than before. ) 

The most famous legal question in which Fortescue 
was concerned was a matter of Parliamentary privilege— 
the lawfulness of Thorp’s imprisonment, on which the 
Lords asked the judges for an opinion. The Chief Justice 
Fortescue, in the name of all the justices, after ‘‘ sad com- 
munication and mature deliberation,’ answered and said 
“that they ought not to answer to that question; for it 
hath not been used aforetime that the justices should in 
any wise determine the privilege of the High Court of 
Parliament; for it is so high and so mighty in its nature 
that it may make law, and the determination and knowledge 
of that privilege belongeth to the Lords of the Parliament, 
and not to the justices.” 

The famous reply tells us little of Fortescue himself, 
but it is clear evidence of the critical times in which he 
lived, and the crucial questions of constitutional law and 
custom with which he was accustomed to deal. Parlia- 
ment had secured its own existence in the fourteenth cen- 
tury; in the fifteenth century it had to adjust its claim to 
those of other members of the Constitution. ‘There was 
much shaking down of ill bed-fellows to be done. Fortes- 
cue, who brought so little individual prejudice to his task, 
was peculiarly fitted to build up customs and principles 
that should endure. 


It is open, I suppose, to a contributor to this book to 
attach each great thinker to the Renaissance or to the 
Reformation at choice. Fortescue lived in an age when 
religious changes were inevitably approaching, when sharp 
questionings were not to be abated by soft words. The 

1 Cf. also ‘“‘ The Lancastrian Constitution,” by T. F. T. Plucknett, in 
Tudor Studies, edited by R. W. Seton-Watson. 
F 81 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


contemporary with whom he is most naturally compared 1s 
Pecock—who ventured even to assert that Aristotle had 
sometimes been wrong, and in any case was nothing but an 
‘* ensearcher to find out truth, as other men were, and are.” 
Yet in religion it 1s impossible to trace in Fortescue any 
shade of influence either of Reformation or Renaissance. 
He was entirely orthodox; in the De Natura Legis Nature 
he expressly and in advance withdraws any statement that 
may, unknown to him, savour of heresy, or be condemned 
by the Church. | 

Fortescue’s opinions on the papal power are curiously 
opposed to his view of limited monarchy. The Pope is 
Summus Pontifex, having supreme power, to whom all 
earthly power is subject, even to the kissing of his feet 
(summam habens potestatem, cui omnis potestas terrena, usque 
ad pedum oscula, est subiecta). ‘This he ‘takes for granted 
without discussion. Dr Figgis sums up the views of the 
Conciliar writers as a belief that the most perfect possible 
constitution, left by Christ to his Church, was a polity— 
a mixed or limited monarchy—in which the monarch is 
checked by a continual Council and both by a large repre- 
sentative body. This belief, though propped up by appeals 
to Aristotle, was actually drawn from the facts of the political 
world of their day. Now Fortescue was perfectly content 
to hold one theory for the secular state and another for the 
Papacy. He never argues from one to the other. He 
recognises General Councils as an institution well estab- 
lished, to which the king must count upon sending his 
representatives and procurators. Yet the Pope is both 
Rex and Sacerdos, and ‘“‘compelleth all princes as well 
temporal as spiritual to come to his Great Councils.” 
Fortescue lived, perhaps, a generation too late to have been 
touched by the Conciliar theory. Mr Plummer says: “It 
is evident that Fortescue was strongly influenced by the 
82 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


papal reaction which followed the Council of Constance.” 
Yet it is fair to notice that these papalist sentiments occur 
in his recantation of Lancastrian views, in the midst of a 
very strained argument and piece of special pleading. 

Even in his personal religion Fortescue was little more 
than an extremely cautious Job, looking out, a trifle puzzled, 
at the spectacle of the wicked flourishing like a green bay- 
tree. He wrote a little Dialogue between Faith and Under- 
standing, in which his resigned yet troubled attitude stands 
out very clearly and individually. ‘“‘ Alas, how many just 
and peaceable creatures have borne the pain and anguish 
of this war! Alas, how many men of honest living have 
suffered death! . . . I see the naughty and reproveable 
people helped with riches, and the good honest people 
beggars and needy.” 

The only solution he can reach is to remind himself 
again and again of the greatness of God. ‘“‘ Canst thou, 
as thou supposest, know the just man from the sinner, and 
be ascertained of the secret thoughts which God hath 
reserved to Himself ?”’ ‘Art thou not remembered how it 
is written that lack of justice and untrue deeds make realms 
ready to be changed?” Or again: “‘ The Word of God 
over-cometh our judgments and judgeth them, and His 
infinite power justifieth all His works in doing them, for He 
is a Justice of Himself.” ‘The Chief Justice is not to be led 
away by any trouble or tragedy beyond his consistent con- 
viction: ‘“‘ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? ”’ 

What is specially noticeable about this little tract is not 
the depth or courage of its thought; it is remarkable for 
neither, but for the fact that in the fifteenth century it bears 
Witness to the vivid personal religion of a busy man of 
politics—a religion limited but undegraded by the degrada- 
tion of the Church, untouched by the materialisation of 
religious teaching. Fortescue’s religion—the religion of a 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


layman—trings as true as the cloistered devotion of ‘Thomas 
a Kempis. . The only hint of modernity lies in the fact 
that he, a layman, writes of religion in English, and there- 
by links himself with the long movement of thought that 
produced the English Bible. 

It remains only to attempt some brief general estimate of 
Fortescue’s place in the political thought of England and 
of Europe. 

Not only is he one of the earliest writers on comparative 
jurisprudence, and in some degree a forerunner of Machia- 
velli in his close intertwining of the theory of politics and 
the facts of history; not only was he a practical statesman 
and a revered judge; he was also one of the strongest 
influences both in suggesting the machinery of the Tudor 
despotism and in inspiring the Stuart lawyers in their 
revolt against that despotism. ‘This apparent paradox is 
due to the fact that Fortescue never quite followed his 
argument as far as it would lead. He knew who should 
compose the Council; he never really faced the question 
who should choose them. He knew that Parliament was 
independent of the judges, but he never discussed the 
membership of Parliament nor the qualifications of electors. 
Hence his influence is felt by both parties, just as some of 
his opinions tend to face both ways. The Tudors worked 
on from his technical and practical experience; the lawyers 
of the seventeenth century inherited and employed his 
principle. 

But the more we study the principles behind Fortescue’s 
life and work the more convinced we grow that he is 
‘not typical of the Renaissance—that he 1s just an English- 
man, wise above the average, honest above the average; 


1 I do not propose to go farther into the question of Fortescue’s influence 
on later generations, for it has been most admirably worked out by Dr Skeel 
in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society for 1916. Little or nothing 
could be added to her treatment of the subject. 


84 


SIR JOHN FORTESCUE 


sane, scholarly, yet practical; a lover of books, who 
could throw away books when necessary, and rely upon 
experience; a lover of justice, tolerant, humane, patient, 
talking little of liberty, still less of freedom of thought, 
yet spending laborious days and nights in endeavouring 
to give to his fellows that justice which is the tangible side 
of liberty. He had been in France, and he thought little 
indeed of the character and habits of Frenchmen; he had 
been in Scotland, and returned critical of the Scot; he made 
no claim to be cosmopolitan in his sympathies: he 1s frankly 
insular, not from ignorance, but by preference. 

He was emphatically an Englishman living at the period 
to which the Renaissance is commonly assigned: if he 
belongs to the Renaissance it is to that peculiar native form 
of the movement which I tried to define in the early part 
of this lecture, and which to the average Englishman appears 
infinitely wiser and sounder than the ecstasies of the Italian 
or the furies of the German Renaissance. 

After such an inconclusive conclusion, perhaps I may be 
thought merely arrogant if | borrow for my final sentence 
the very words of Fortescue: “Since the intention is 
answered wherewith you were moved to this conference, 
time and reason require that we put an end to it.” 


A. E. Levetrr 


1 His Monarchia has indeed been translated into German, but the editor 
found hardly an original reflection to make upon it. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The Works of Sir Fohn Fortescue, collected and arranged by Thomas (Fortes- 
cue), Lord Clermont. 2 vols. 1869. 

FortescuE, Sir Joun: The Governance of England: otherwise called the 
Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy. Edited with 
notes by Charles Plummer. 1885. 

ForTEscuk, Sir Joun: Commendation of the Laws of England. 'The trans- 
lation into English of De Laudibus Legum Anglia, by Francis Grigor. 
1917 (reprint of edition of 1825). 

SxeEL, C. A. J.: “ The Influence of the Writings of Sir John Fortescue,” in 
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1916, 3rd series, vol. x. 

English Historical Review. (a) 1911: note by J. P. Gilson on a literary 


fragment, possibly by Fortescue. (4) 1912: document and note by 
Miss Cora Scofield. 


Hoxpswortu, W. S.: History of English Law, vol. ii. 


86 


IV 
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
I 


O one who visits Hereford Cathedral can fail to 
N: struck by the marvellous Mappa Mundi of 

Richard de Haldingham, which adorns the south 
choir aisle. It represents the theological conception of 
the world at the close of the thirteenth century. The 
habitable earth which it portrays is flat and circular, like 
a rimless plate, surrounded by a narrow fringe of ocean. At 
the centre of the circle stands Jerusalem; at the extreme 
east the Garden of Eden; midway between the two the 
Tower of Babel. Round the margin at different points 
are situated such places as the peninsula in which Gog and 
Magog were interned by Alexander the Great, the Earthly 
Paradise discovered by St Brandan, and the British Isles. 
On various otherwise unoccupied spots in Asia and Africa 
are to be found such interesting curiosities as the kingdom 
of Prester John, the realm of the Amazons, the granaries 
of Joseph, and the land of the Sciapodes, those fascinating 
one-legged folk whose solitary foot was so large and adapt- 
able that it not only carried them about with incredible 
celerity, but also served them when they rested as a shelter 
from the tropical sun. It would be difficult to conceive 
any map which, in all its details, is more widely and wildly 
remote from correspondence with geographical reality. 
For even when it does present such features as the British 
Isles or the Mediterranean Sea which undoubtedly exist, it 
presents them in such forms and positions as make them 


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almost unrecognisable. We may safely say that not even 
in the thirteenth century did it ever occur to any master 
mariner to borrow this map, or make a copy of it, for pur- 
poses of navigation. We may also confidently assert that 
if he had done so his voyage would have resulted in speedy 
and irretrievable disaster. 

At the very time, however, when the pious prebendary 
of Haldingham was concocting from the Scriptures and the 
mythologies this fantastic travesty of the world as it actually 
exists, Italian seamen—particularly those of Venice and 
Genoa—on the basis of careful observation and repeated 
experiment, were constructing for practical purposes porto- 
Jani, or mariners’ charts, which give an amazingly accurate 
and minute representation of that Mediterranean basin 
wherein the main maritime commerce of the Middle Ages 
was concentrated. Free from prejudice and prepossession, 
unhampered by the postulates of theology, they depicted 
lands and seas as they really were, and so laid the founda- 
tions of the modern science of navigation. 

All which is a parable and an analogy. Richard de 
Haldingham was a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas 
and Dante. While he was drawing his fantastic map 
they were expounding the principles of politics. And 
the principles of politics as expounded by them bore, in 
respect of remoteness from reality, a striking resemblance to 
Richard’s cosmology. They both lived ideally in a unified 
and symmetrical society—the Respublica Christiana—whose 
supreme ruler was God, and whose final law was His Holy 
Will. This society was administered mediately by two 
human agents, the Pope and the Emperor, the one exer- 
cising divine authority over all causes spiritual, the other 
over all causes temporal.. Under the Pope served a hier- 
archy of cardinals, bishops, and clergy ; under the Emperor 
a corresponding hierarchy of kings, nobles, and knights. 
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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


‘The only serious problem that disturbed the beatific serenity 

of either St Thomas or Dante was the problem of the rela- 
tion between the two powers, the spiritual and the temporal. 
Were they co-ordinate and equal, or was one superior to 
the other? How were the spheres of their jurisdiction 
delimited? As to these problems the views of St Thomas 
and Dante differed. ‘To the one the Papacy from its very 
nature was the higher power; to the other the Empire 
had an immemorial claim to universal authority. The 
arguments by which these rival contentions were supported 
were drawn from precisely the same sources as those from 
which Richard de Haldingham filled his map with visionary 
shapes and imaginary names. They were arguments from 
the Scriptures, from the Fathers, from classical mythology, 
from supposed natural history. They turned upon the 
story of the Creation; upon the relation of the sun to the 
moon ; of the soul to the body, of eternity to time; upon 
Samuel’s attitude to Saul; upon the offerings of the Magi 
to the infant Lord; upon the sufficiency of the two swords 
possessed by Peter in the garden; upon the Saviour’s 
parting command to the Apostles, and upon a multitude 
of other similar irrelevancies. They were, indeed, schol- 
astic exercises almost wholly devoid of any relation to the 
actual politics of their age. For, at the very moment 
when Richard de Haldingham was moving with his map to 
Hereford, and while Dante was still in his prime, the Papal 
Monarchy, which St ‘Thomas had exalted to the sky, passed 
from the humiliation of Anagni to the debasement of the 
‘“ Babylonish Captivity” at Avignon. Similarly, the Holy 
Roman Empire, to which Dante looked for the unification 
and pacification of mankind, sank to the condition of a 
mere German overlordship, and even in that limited sphere 
ceased to function, since it failed to give even to Germany 
either unity or peace. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


In short, while medieval champions of Papacy and 
Empire were contending in the academic empyrean for the 
prize of a visionary world-dominion, actual authority over 
the men of a distracted and disrupted Christendom was 
being divided among a number of secular princes, out of 
whose mortal conflicts and diabolical intrigues the modern 
state-system was being evolved. Unchecked by either 
papal or Imperial authority, regardless of both canon and 
civil law, emancipated alike from the restraints of religion 
and of ethics, the “ new monarchs ”’ of the political jungle 
were displaying in a desperate struggle for existence those 
qualities of the lion and the fox which in the earlier ages of 
the cosmic process of biological evolution had enabled the 
animal possessors of these qualities to survive and prevail. 
The weapons in this fierce political struggle for existence 
were war and diplomacy. On the one hand, new armies, 
new means of offence and defence, new tactics and strategy, 
and, above all, a new ferocity, completely changed the mili- 
tary art from what it had been during the Middle Ages. 
On the other hand, missions, embassies, royal visits, sup- 
plemented by dispatches, memoranda, and reports, insti- 
tuted a new science of diplomacy in which craft and guile 
found a limitless field for exercise. [he princes who had 
to defend themselves in arms against a circle of powerful, 
alert, and merciless foes, and to protect themselves diplo- 
matically against the conspiracies and intrigues of countless 
malignant rivals both within and without their states, had 
no use for the lofty speculations of Aquinas or Dante re- 
specting the two powers, the two lights, the two swords, 
and the general duality of things. What they required was 
not a Mappa Mundi giving them sanctified information 
respecting the imaginary situation of the Garden of Eden, 
the Tower of Babel, and the kingdom of Prester John; it 
was a portolano providing, in the form of a precise chart, 


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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


the data indispensable for the navigation of the stormy 
and rock-infested seas on which their frail barques were 
tossing. It was such a portolano that Machiavelli professed 
to provide. His prime achievement, indeed, was to change 
the method of political speculation ; to make it once again, 
‘as it had been in Aristotle’s day, inductive and historical ; 
to bring it back from the heavens to the earth; to render 
it (so he hoped) practical and useful. He converted an 
abstract political philosophy, subordinate to ethics and 
theology, into an independent art of government divorced 
from both morals and religion. 


II 


Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence in 1469. 
This was the year in which Lorenzo the Magnificent 
began that period of uncrowned principality (1469-92) 
wherein the splendid city of Machtavelli’s birth attained 
the summit of its glory and assumed the undisputed leader- 
ship in the scholarship, the thought, and the art of the 
Renaissance. It was also, by a coincidence, the year in 
which occurred the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and 
Isabella of Castile—an event which some historians speak 
of as marking the beginning of modern history, since it 
led to the unification of the Christian powers of the Penin- 
sula, the conquest of Granada, the discovery of America, 
and the establishment of a century of Spanish ascendancy 
in Europe. It was significant that Machiavelli should 
thus have been born in the heyday of the Renaissance, and 
that he should have spent his youth amid the vast and rapid 
changes which inaugurated the era of the modern national 
states. For no one of whom we have record so early or so 
completely divested himself of the Middle Ages, or displayed 
himself so nakedly to his contemporaries, as the New Man. 


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Of his early life we know little. His family was Tuscan, 
old and noble. His father, Bernardo, followed the law, 
and occasionally held public appointments in Florence: he 
was also a landowner in a small way, drawing rents which 
were sufficient to relieve him—and his son Nicolo after 
him—from the fear of extreme poverty. Nicolo, although 
he soon showed an acuteness of mind which raised him 
above the level of his family and his neighbours, did not 
receive a very elaborate education: he learned to write 
Latin, but apparently not to read Greek. “The com- 
parative restriction of his culture,” says Villari, in words 
which should cheer and console modern undergraduates, 
“had the inestimable advantage of preserving the sponta- 
neous originality of his genius and his style, and preventing 
them from being suffocated beneath a dead weight of erudi- 
tion.” So long as the rule of the Medici endured in 
Florence Machiavelli had, it would seem, no regular occu- 
pation. But the expulsion of Lorenzo’s unworthy son, 
Piero, by the French in 1494, and the establishment of the 
republic, opened to him the way of civicemployment. His 
study of Livy and Polybius had made him convincedly 
republican in sentiment. He looked with enthusiasm to 
the renewal in Florence of the great days of antique Rome, 
and he held the fervent hope that through the Florence of 
his day, as through the Rome of two thousand years earlier, 
Italy would attain to unity and peace. 

At first, it. would appear, Machiavelli attached himself 
to Savonarola, who, then in the flood-tide of his influence, 
was preaching the salvation of Italy through moral reform 
and religious revival, under French domination. But 
Machiavelli lacked moral sense, was entirely devoid of 
religious faith, and was filled with a loathing for foreigners. 
Hence he soon drew away from the agitating friar, and 
viewed with approval the means that were employed to 


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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


extinguish him (1498). In both the Discourses and The 
Prince he examines with cold precision the cause of Savon- 
arola’s collapse: it was, he decided, that he was unarmed, 
and that behind the fury of his empty words, and the 
passing frenzy which he roused in the fickle populace, there 
was no force on which he could rely for the realisation of 
his ideals. Machiavelli came to the conclusion, which all 
his subsequent experience confirmed, that force directed by 
craft is the only thing that counts in politics. 

This subsequent experience of his was varied and 1m- 
portant. In 1498 he was appointed secretary to the so- 
called Second Chancery, otherwise known as “ The Ten” 
—an administrative body specially concerned with the con- 
duct of diplomacy and war. This office he held for fourteen 
years, that is, until 1512, when the republican constitution 
under which he served was overthrown and the Medicean 
tyranny restored. He performed his duties as a Secretary 
of State with conspicuous zeal, ability, fidelity, and success. 
In 1502, when his friend Piero Soderini—to whom he refers 
in many passages of his writings—was appointed perpetual 
Gonfalonier, he became, as his confidential adviser and 
trusted agent, one of the most influential men not only in 
Florence, but in Italy as a whole. His high position and 
the growing recognition of his exceptional powers of mind 
caused him to be sent by the Florentine Signory on a 
number of important military and political missions. On 
the one hand, he had to raise troops, hire mercenaries, 
make alliances, secure auxiliaries, and even conduct opera- 
tions, in the long-drawn war with Pisa. On the other hand, 
he had to visit many Courts and camps, in order that he 
might counter conspiracies against his beloved city, break 
up hostile confederations, secure the withdrawal of un- 
reasonable demands, and cement doubtful friendships. 

His task was a far from enviable one. Since the death 


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of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1492 a new and critical condition 
of things had arisen in Italy. The foreigners had begun 
to pour their armies into the peninsula. The French 
invasion of 1494 had been followed by incursions of 
Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss, until Italy had become the 
battleground of the ferocious monarchs and marauders of 
the New Europe. It was the French with whom Florence, 
and Machiavelli as its representative, had most todo. ‘The 
French had driven out the Medici in 1494; the French 
were the nominal allies of the Florentines in their efforts 
to conquer the intractable city of Pisa (which was supported 
by Spain and the Empire); the French were their main 
bulwark against the machinations of Cesar Borgia and the 
exiled Piero de’ Medici. The Florentine Republic, in 
short, existed only by sufferance of the French, and the 
French king, Louis XII, was entirely aware of the fact. 
Hence neither he nor his subordinates felt it at all necessary 
to conceal their contempt for Florence, their indifference 
to Machiavelli, or their complete unconcern as to what 
anyone in Tuscany said or did. They mulcted the Floren- 
tines of money; they subjected them to the grossest in- 
sults; they deserted them in critical emergencies; they 
finally left them naked to the vengeance of their foes. Four 
times was Machiavelli sent to Louis XII to plead for better 
treatment, and the humiliations which he was compelled 
impotently to suffer ate like a red-hot iron into his soul. 
How was it, he asked, that the French were so much stronger 
than the Italians that they could do with them what they 
liked? How was it that they could march from end to 
end of their peninsula without opposition ; could sack their 
cities, overthrow their governments, plunder their treasures, 
slay their men, and violate their women, with complete 
impunity? How was it that the representative of an 
Italian state, such as Florence—a state eminent throughout 


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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


Christendom in commerce, finance, art, and learning— 
could be treated with a contempt reserved in other lands 
for serfs and dogs? ‘The answer, to Machiavelli, was 
plain: the Italians lacked political unity, and the small 
states among which they were divided lacked, whether 
singly or in combination, military power. 


III 


The two obvious weaknesses of Italy in Machtavelli’s day 
were, indeed, political disunion and military incapacity. 

The outstanding political phenomenon of the period was 
the formation of strong national states in the west of Europe. 
First, England had attained to unity and self-consciousness 
during the long and fiery process of the Hundred Years 
War. The subsequent Wars of the Roses, by eliminating 
the feudal nobility, had completed her consolidation. 
Under the firm and patriotic rule of the Tudor kings she 
had begun to enjoy peace, prosperity, power. Secondly, 
France had grown from a distracted collection of un- 
governable fiefs into a mighty monarchy. One by one the 
great lordships had been subordinated to the Crown, until, 
with the acquisition of Burgundy and Brittany in Machia- 
velli’s own time, the direct royal authority had been estab- 
lished over all the vast territory of the realm. Thirdly, 
Spain had arisen, as if by miracle, from the chaos and con- 
fusion of eight centuries of religious conflict and civil war. 
The Christian states of Leon, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, 
Catalonia, had all been brought under the rule of the joint 
monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. ‘The last Moorish en- 
clave, Granada, had been absorbed. A vigorous religious 
unity had been impressed upon a newly created and proudly 
conscious Spanish nation. 

Even in Germany a national spirit was moving—a spirit 


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which was destined, ere the end of Machiavelli’s life, to 
manifest itself in the upheaval of the Reformation. The 
Emperor Maximilian, moreover, amid the distractions of 
his diversions and dissipations, was striving to re-establish 
some sort of central government, with courts and councils, 
military forces, and calculable revenue. Machiavelli anti- 
cipated the speedy unification of Germany, in spite of 
Maximilian’s ineffectiveness, because it already had a titular 
head, because it possessed racial homogeneity, because it 
was peopled by men accustomed to war, but above all 
because it was the home in a special degree of such virtue 
as still remained upon the earth. 

The case of Italy, however, was very different. In- 
tellectually and esthetically in the van of all European 
peoples, morally and politically she lagged far in the rear. 
Her people, widely diverse in race and culture, were 
utterly degenerate and corrupt; she had lost all mili- 
tary capacity; her princes were craven and criminal; her 
Church was secularised and incredibly depraved; she was 
torn by violent schisms and incessant intrigues. No bond 
of any sort of unity held together her struggling atoms. 
The task of consolidating her, and making a nation of her, 
seemed to be beyond the reach of any normal means. And 
yet consolidated, nationalised, re-created, she must be, if 
she were to hold her own with the New Monarchs, if she 
were to be able to expel the foreign invaders, if she were 
to succeed in restoring order and in suppressing the orgy 
of villainy by which she was degraded and disgraced. 

Five main states divided the peninsula between them. 
In the north the duchy of Milan and the republic of Venice 
contended for dominance in the Lombard Plain and for con- 
trol of the eastern passes of the Alps. In the south the king- 
dom of Naples, under a line of illegitimate and treacherous 


1 Cf. Discourses on Livy, I, 55. 


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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


Aragonese rulers, contended for power and dominion 
against a resistant and fulminating Papacy. Between the 
two pairs of combatants Tuscany, under the hegemony 
of Florence, held a fluctuating balance. Normally, the 
Papacy and Venice were allied against Milan and Naples; 
but departures from the norm were frequent and bewilder- 
ing. Hence the study of Italian politics in the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries is like an attempt to solve a com- 
plicated puzzle. One dominant fact, however, emerges 
from the study. It is that in the game of politics as played 
in Italy at that time no rules of honour or morality what- 
soever were observed. ‘Treasons, betrayals, poisonings, 
assassinations, perjuries, hypocrisies, sacrileges, infidelities— 
all kinds of base and hateful villainies—were employed 
without scruple or remorse. The Papacy in particular, 
under such Popes as Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, and Julius IJ, 
forgetting its sacred nature, and ignoring its international 
responsibilities, made itself notorious for its violence, selfish- 
ness, treachery, and mendacity. Machiavelli came to regard 
it as the root cause of Italy’s disunion and debasement. 
Another cause, however, the importance of which pro- 
foundly impressed him, was the military weakness of the 
Italians. Individual Italians, such as Castruccio Castracani 
of Lucca (whose life he made the basis of a notable romance), 
showed, it is true, both bravery and capacity. But the 
people of the peninsula, as a whole, were soft and effemi- 
nate, cowardly and unwarlike, engrossed in commerce and 
finance, distracted from virtue by philosophy and art, 
debilitated by sensuality, depraved by scepticism. ‘They 
were, indeed, extremely quarrelsome, and they were ex- 
perts in the use of poison and the dagger; but they pre- 
ferred to wage their wars by proxy—that is, by means of 
companies of hired mercenaries, or by means of armies of 
auxiliaries drawn from foreign lands. So long as Italy’s 


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quarrels were merely domestic this did not matter much. 
Her wars became little more than bloodless games, wherein 
treachery and bribery played a more decisive part than 
force or military skill. But it was another matter when she 
had to deal with the hosts of the new nations who came 
across the mountains or the seas to slay, to plunder, and to 
subjugate. 

Northern Europe had been undergoing a military revo- 
lution. ‘The days of feudal levies, armour-clad knights, 
battlemented castles, and picturesque chivalry were over. 
Everywhere national armies—large forces of foot-soldiers 
drawn mainly from the third estate—equipped with new 
weapons, and supported by that satanic novelty, artillery, 
were making havoc of old military conventions, trans- 
forming the art of war, and reconstructing the political 
framework of the Continent. First France, by the famous 
Ordonnance of Orleans in 1439, had established the force 
which had finally cleared both Normandy and Aquitaine of 
the English, and brought the exhausting Hundred Years 
War to a victorious end. Spain, Switzerland, the states of 
Germany, all had followed suit. Even England was re- 
-organising her national militia, and was building the Royal 
Navy, which was destined to enable her from time to time 
to determine the balance of power in Europe. Only Italy 
remained inept, her coast unprotected, her passes unguarded, 
her rich cities a prey to any invader, her fruitful plains 
open to every spoiler. What, to Machiavelli, appeared the 
remedy for this deplorable condition of affairs? 


IV 


For the salvation of Italy from internal disorder and 
external oppression Machiavelli looked principally to the 
military regeneration of the people. ‘The Nation in Arms 


98 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


was his ideal. ‘“‘ All able-bodied men between the ages 
of seventeen and forty should be drilled so as to be always 
ready to defend their country.” The treacherous and 
ineffective mercenaries should be dismissed. The danger- 
ous and doubtful aid of alien auxiliaries should be refused. 
Machiavelli was speaking of what he knew. He himself, 
in the course of the protracted struggle between Florence 
and Pisa, had had agonising experience of both the violent 
perfidy of the Italian condottieri and the perfidious violence 
of the French men-at-arms whom Louis XII had sent to 
the nominal aid of the republic. The net result of their 
operations had been the humiliation of Florence, the failure 
of all her schemes, and the exhaustion of her treasury. 

In all his great political works Machiavelli gives this 
supreme military problem a prominent place. To take 
the works in the order of their composition. (1) In The 
Prince he devotes a whole section (chapters xli-xiv)— 
about one-eighth of the entire book—to the question. 
First he exposes, with numerous examples, the evils of the 
condottieri system: “ If Italy,”’ he says, “‘ had not trusted 
so many years to mercenary troops, she would not now be 
ruined.” He blames “the ecclesiastical princes, strangers 
to the art of war,” for introducing the vicious practice, the 
_ final consequence of which is that “ Italy has been overrun 
by Charles, pillaged by Louis, forced by Ferdinand, and 
disgraced by the Switzers.’’ Secondly, he treats of the 
perils which flow from the acceptance of the aid of foreign 
auxiliaries, and he illustrates his thesis by the disasters 
which accrued to Julius II from his Spanish allies, to 
Florence from its French levies, to the Byzantines from 
the Turkish stipendiaries, to Louis XI from the hired 
Swiss, and to the later Roman Emperors from their Gothic 
federati. Finally, he emphasises the prime importance of 

1 The Art of War, Book I. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


military skill to princes, and of military training to their 
people: “ Princes,”’ he asserts, “ought to make the art 
of war their sole duty and occupation, for it 1s peculiarly 
the science of those who govern. War and the several 
sorts of discipline and institutions relative to it should be 
their only pursuits, the only profession they should follow, 
and the object they ought always to have in view.”’ More- 
over, they ‘‘ must above all things, as the very foundation 
of the whole business, be furnished with soldiers of their 
own natives.” 

(2) In the Discourses on Livy, using the Romans as ex- 
amples, he shows why “ mercenary soldiers were unprofit- 
able’ and contends that “it 1s necessary in the maintaining 
of a state, whether it be a republic or a kingdom, to arm the 
native subjects, as we see all those have done who with their 
armies have made any great conquests.”? But if the 
mercenaries are unprofitable, foreign auxiliaries are much 
worse: “ Of all kinds of soldiers the auxiliaries are the 
most dangerous—therefore a prince or a republic should 
rather take any other course than seek to bring auxiliary 
soldiers into his country.”’? ‘The decadence of the Roman 
Empire began, he considers, when the Imperial armies 
ceased to be native and were recruited from Parthians and 
Germans. 

(3) The Art of War, one of Machiavelli’s most note- 
worthy and original works, is, as its title implies, wholly 
devoted to this cardinal theme. Its seven books are cast 
in the form of dialogues, in which the successful Italian 
commander, Fabrizio Calonna, expresses the views that 
may be regarded as Machiavelli’s own. ‘“‘ The funda- 
mental idea of The Art of War,” says Villari, “is that the 
best militia can be formed by arming the people, and that 
at all periods the infantry constitutes the backbone of an 

1 Discourses, I, 44. 2 Ibid., II, 20. 8 Ibid., Il, 30. 
IOO 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


army.’ 1 Or, in the words put into the mouth of Fabrizio, 
“We are taught by history and experience, that all states 
must be based upon national arms, and that by these alone 
can they be securely defended.” Machiavelli regards the 
Roman legion as the supreme model for imitation, but-he~ 
considers that improvements in matters of detail are sug- 
gested by examination of the military systems of the Swiss, 
Germans, and Spanish foot-soldiers of his own day. He 
describes his resultant ideal for an Italian national army. 
It is curious—and it suggests the limitations of the literary 
man when he is dealing with practical affairs—that he 
would not equip his national force with firearms, but would 
revert to javelins, pikes, swords, and bows and arrows! 
Even artillery—which in his own day had played a decisive 
part in the battles of Ravenna, Novara, and Marignano— 
he regards as of little account. ‘‘ Cannon are so difficult 
of management that if you aim ever so little too high their 
shots pass over the enemy’s head, and if you lower them in 
the least they fire into the ground. They are altogether 
useless in a general engagement.” 2 Into Machiavelli’s 
detailed discussions of the methods of training a militia, 
the conduct of armies in the field, the principles of strategy 
and tactics, the manner of quartering troops, and finally 
the theories of fortification, it 1s unnecessary for us to enter. 
Suffice it to say that The Art of War, as a whole, is a pioneer 
treatise: it holds the same eminent place in military science 
as The Prince does in political science. Moreover, the pur- 
pose of the two works is the same: it 1s the emancipa- 
tion and unification of Italy. Just as Machiavelli concludes 
The Prince with the declaration, “‘ The first Italian who will 
follow my councils shall, to his immortal honour, succeed 
in the magnanimous enterprise of freeing his country,” 


1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 292. 
2 The Art of War, Book III. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


so does he end The Art of War with the words, “I declare 
to you that whichsoever of the princes now holding states 
in Italy shall first enter upon this road, he will be the first 
to become lord of this country.” 

(4) In the History of Florence, written toward the close 
of his life, Machiavelli once more reverts to this dominant 
military matter. Again and again he emphasises his con- 
viction that the condottieri have been the cause of Italy’s 
undoing, and his belief that her redemption can come only 
by means of a return to the patriotic ways of the antique - 
legionaries of Rome. 

Machiavelli did not limit himself to words. During 
the republican period of his life, in his official capacity, 
he was able to secure authority from the Florentine Signory 
to organise and equip a militia. For six years (1506-12) 
he toiled unremittingly at the task, persevering amid the 
most disheartening difficulties. In 1512, when the French 
—the chief allies of the republic—were driven from Italy 
by the Spaniards, Germans, and Swiss; when the hostile 
Pope, Julius II, supported the exiled Medici in their efforts 
to return; when all extraneous aid failed them—in 1512 
the militia was put to the test of war. At the first puff 
of gunpowder it turned tail and fled! The product of 
Machiavelli’s six years of devoted labour vanished into thin 
air, Florence fell; the Medici resumed their tyranny; 
Machiavelli, having suffered imprisonment and torture, 
passed into banishment. He realised that Italy needed 
not only arms, but a man. 


Vv 


Machiavelli’s banishment to his country estate at San 
Casciano provided him with leisure and opportunity to 
ponder his past career, to consider the lessons of his 
102 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


experience, and to reinforce his conclusions by parallels 
drawn from Roman history. But for the ruin of his politi- 
cal prospects in 1512 we should have had none of his great 
literary works, and save for his official documents he would 
have passed Almost inarticulate into oblivion. As it was, 
he relieved the boredom of his enforced retirement from 
affairs by diligent reading, hard thinking, and voluminous 
writing ; seeking, moreover, by means of his pen, to win 
his way back into the service of the state which he loved 
with the purest devotion of his life. 

He wrote primarily of the things which he himself had 
seen and known. ‘True, he discoursed largely on Livy. 
Nevertheless, he was a student ‘of current politics rather 
than of history. His method was that of observation more 
than of research. He was, indeed, devoid of the historic 
spirit, and, if he drew extensively upon history in his works, 
he did so uncritically and unscrupulously, being concerned 
merely to find examples to support.conclusions already 
reached. Legend suited him quite as well as fact. The 
source Of his science of politics was, in truth, his own diplo- 
matic experience. As Secretary of the Ten he had gone, 
as we have remarked, during the fourteen years of his service, 
on many important missions to Italian and other Courts. 
Of these numerous missions the four of outstanding signi- 
ficance were those to Louis XII in 1500, to Cesar Borgia 
in 1502, to Pope Julius II in 1506, and to the Emperor 
Maximilian in 1507. ‘The first and the last of these four 
had taken him beyond the Alps; had revealed to him peoples 
vaster and more virile than the Italians; had opened his 
eyes to the meaning of nationality, patriotism, and civic 
virtue; had filled him with speculations as to the means 
by which the heterogeneous populations of his own 
country—cultivated but corrupt, intellectually renascent 
but morally decadent, individually quick but politically 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


dead—could be welded together and vitalised with a spirit 
of unity. Huis speculations had taken rough shape in the 
dispatches which he had sent from time to time to the 
Ten, and so gradually in his official writings an art of’ 
government had begun to formulate itself. ‘Thus a series 
of political portolani had come into existence, specially 
constructed to enable the statesmen of the Florentine 
republic to steer the frail barque of their defenceless city 
amid the storms of the tempestuous dawn of the modern 
era, and among the shifting quicksands of the peculiarly 
- treacherous diplomacy of the time. A state which had no 
native army, but was at the mercy of hired condottieri and 
alien auxiliaries, had to depend for the continuance of its 
precarious existence upon ‘the craft and subtlety of its 
politicians. Machiavelli had sought in his masterly dis- 
patches to guide the helpless and distracted Signory along 
ways of security. 

His mission to the camp of the warlike Pope Julius II 
had been important in that it had confirmed him in his 
opinion that the prime cause of Italy’s disruption was 
the existence of the States of the Church, and that the 
most formidable obstacle to the unification of the peninsula 
was the temporal power of the Papacy. This conviction 
remained with him to the end of his days. His last 
work, his unfinished History of Florence, although it was 
written by order of a cardinal and was dedicated to a Pope, 
is inspired throughout by a fierce and freely avowed detes- 
tation of clerical rule. Having in the introductory book 
portrayed the sad condition of Italy, Machiavelli concludes 
—to quote Villari’s summary—‘‘ The sole remedy for 
these evils is the institution of a national army under the 
rule of a prince able to organise and command his troops, 
and to use them for the defence and unity of the country, 
by abasing the power of the Papacy, emancipating and 
104. 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 
fortifying the State, and leaving at his death a legacy of 


good laws and civil institutions towards the establishment 
of liberty.” + 

The abasement of the power of the Papacy, however, 
requires, he perceives, the effective existence of a national 
army; and the effective existence of a national army 
necessitates the rule of an autocratic and capable prince. 
What sort of a person must the prince be who, in the 
desperate circumstances of the time, can carry through 
this titanic project of unification? The answer to this 
question had been provided by the experience which 
Machiavelli had gained on the most remarkable of all 
his diplomatic missions, namely, that to the moving camp 
of Cesar Borgia in 1502—at Urbino, Imola, Cesena, 
Sinigaglia. 

In 1502 Cesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, had 
been engaged in his father’s name, but on his own behalf, 
in reducing the Romagna. Nominally a portion of the 
States of the Church, the Romagna had, during the eclipse 
of the Papacy in the Captivity and the Schism, passed into 
the hands of a number of petty tyrants, whom it had proved 
impossible to dispossess or control. Cesar, having pro- 
cured from the papal Curia the cession of the Romagna 
as a dukedom, had been employed in expelling the tyrants 
and establishing an orderly government. MHaving few 
forces of his own, he had been compelled to operate with 
mercenaries under such leaders, then noted, as Paolo Orsini, 
Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto of Fermo. But he had 
been mainly dependent on Gascon and Swiss auxiliaries pro- 
vided under treaty by Louis XII of France. His little war 
had raged within a few miles of the Tuscan frontier, and 
Florence had been perturbed both by raids into her territories 
and also by pressing demands on Cesar’s part for men 

1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 394. 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


and money. Machiavelli had been sent—at first nominally 
under Bishop Francesco Soderini—to Czsar’s headquarters 
to ward off the Duke’s hostility, mitigate his demands, 
and if possible safeguard Florence from injury and spolia- 
tion. On the whole, he had succeeded in his purpose, 
and he had secured the cordial commendation of the 
Signory. The fifty-two letters, still extant, which he had 
penned from the Borgian base contain not only the most 
vivid and authentic of all existing pictures of Duke Cesar 
at the height of his fortune, but also a clear forecast of that 
science of statecraft which ten years later Machiavelli was 
to embody in The Prince. 

For some six months in 1502 Machiavelli had had 
the formidable Caesar under close and almost constant 
observation. Although his diplomatic enemy, engaged 
with him in an incessant contest of subtlety and wit, yet 
he had acquired for him an immense admiration. His 
quickness, his courage, his secrecy, his terrific vigour, 
his iron resolution, his remorseless severity, his amazing 
success, had filled Machiavelli with wonder and envy. He 
had contrasted his mode of procedure with the slow, vacil- 
lating, inept feebleness of the Florentine Signory. In 
particular, he had watched with the most profound interest 
and appreciation the way in which he had succeeded in 
emancipating himself from his faithless mercenaries, and 
in rendering himself independent of his dangerous French 
auxiliaries, by winning the confidence of his new subjects 
and building up a native army. In Cesar Borgia Machia- 
velli had found a prince who might, if fortune had continued 
to favour him, have accomplished the desire of his heart. 
In Cesar Borgia’s methods he had seen what appeared to 
him to be the only means by which the revivification of 
Italy could be effected, the foreigner expelled, and unity 
achieved. 

106 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


VI 


Machiavelli’s sympathies were wholly republican ; one of 
the finer traits in his cynical and repellent character is his 
faith in the people—a faith, we may remark, not very easy to 
reconcile with his pessimistic estimate of individual human 
nature. If ever the clarity of his style begins to glow with 
the warmth of generous emotion it is when he speaks of 
the virtues of the Roman commonwealth or the liberties 
of his native city. His Discourses on Livy are eloquent of 
democratic enthusiasm, and it was the reading of them to 
the select assembly which used to meet in the Oricellarit 
Gardens which inspired the Soderini conspiracy against 
the Medicean tyranny in 1522.1 But he was entirely 
aware that republican institutions are possible only to a 
virtuous people; that is to say, to a people courageous, 
simple and pure in life, self-sacrificing, devoted to the ser- 
vice of the State and zealous for the common weal. Such 
a people were the ancient Romans of whom he read credu- 
lously in the First Decade of Livy and in the voluminous 
eulogies of Polybius. Such too, he thought, were the 
Swiss and the Germans of his own day. But such were 
not the contemporary Italians. His experiences in Florence, 
especially in relation to his militia, coupled with his observa- 
tions in the Papal States, Venice, Milan, and Naples, all 
filled him with the conviction that, although Italy might 
be ready for republicanism when she should have been 
disciplined, united, regenerated, yet in her existing condition 
her only hope lay in the stern and strong autocracy of a 
militant and politic prince—such a prince as Cesar Borgia 
had been in his prime, such a prince as Giuliano or Lorenzo 
de’ Medici might conceivably be. 

By what means should a prince seek to attain to ascend- 


1 Villari, The Life and Times of Machiavelli, ii, 333. 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


ancy in such an Italy as that of Machiavelli’s day, and, 
having attained to it, by what means should he seek to 
keep it? That is the question which Machiavelli set him- 
self to answer in the most famous—or infamous—of all 
his works, the treatise entitled J/ Principe. ‘This brief 
but pungent treatise, written in the latter half of the year 
1513, was composed for, dedicated to, and intended for 
the exclusive perusal of the Medicean tyrant who had 
overthrown the Florentine republic the year before. It 
is imperative that those who read it should realise that they 
were not meant to do so. It was not written for them. 
It was a paper of private and confidential instructions 
prepared for the personal and peculiar use of a particular 
individual. It was not a general dissertation on the science 
of politics or the art of government. It was not compiled 
for publication, nor was it in fact published until five 
years after Machiavelli’s death (1532), when an injudicious 
Pope—Clement VII, cousin of the man to whom it had 
been dedicated—imprudently let it loose upon the world. 
Its whole efficacy depended upon its zot being published : 
for in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird! The 
very success of such craft and guile as Machiavelli com- 
mends hangs upon the faith 1n the honesty and sincerity 
of the deceiver. ‘To proclaim to the world that you are 
going to tell lies renders it useless for you to do so. Your 
very truth is not believed. 

The Prince, then, is a vade mecum dedicated to the use 
of the Medici—first Giuliano; secondly, after Giuliano’s 
death in 1516, Lorenzo. ‘That Machiavelli should have 
sought to serve the Medici 1s, indeed, at first sight, sur- 
prising ; for the whole of his public life had been spent in 
trying to prevent their return to Florence; and when, in 
spite of him, they had come back he had suffered much 


inconvenience at their hands—including dismissal from 
108 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


office, exile, imprisonment, and torture on the rack. When, 
in fact, The Prince passed into circulation it was its dedica- 
tion to the Medici rather than its surrender to the devil 
that caused astonishment and adverse criticism in Italy. 
It was not its obvious abandonment of morality, but its 
apparent desertion of the republican cause which excited 
scandal and demanded explanation. To us the explana- 
tion is fairly clear : Italy, in Machiavelli’s opinion, needed 
a despot ; and Machiavelli quite obviously needed and 
desired employment. Hence he addressed the Medici, 
who at the moment were doubly powerful in the posses- 
sion of both Tuscany and the Papacy. On the one hand: 
‘““ May your illustrious house, strong in all the hopes which 
justice gives our cause, deign to undertake this noble 
enterprise,” z.e., the deliverance and consolidation of Italy. 
On the other hand: “If from your elevated position you 
should condescend to look down on a person in my lowly 
station, you will see how long and how unworthily I have 
been persecuted by the extreme and unrelenting malevo- 
lence of fortune.” ? 

Apart from the Dedication, the twenty-six chapters of 
The Prince fall into five groups. The first group (i—x1) 
treats of generalities, the greater part being devoted to the 
classification of principalities in respect of their nature 
and mode of acquisition. In this section by far the most 
noteworthy chapter-ts*that (vi1) which contains Machtavell1’s 
account of the meteoric career of Cesar Borgia, whom he 
idealises, under the name of Valentino, until he becomes a 
mythological being, the embodiment of sheer, unmitigated 
statecraft. He holds him up as a perfect model for a 
new prince who would secure himself in his principality. 
He does this with his eyes open, knowing intimately well 
the appalling crimes—murders, assassinations, treacheries, 


1 The Prince, ch. xxvii. 2 Ibid., Dedication. 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


duplicities, debaucheries, sacrileges—of which this terrible — 
adventurer had been guilty. In one of his earlier writings, 
the so-called first Decennale (1 504), he had truly and frankly 
described him as ‘‘a man without compassion, rebellious 
to Christ, the Hydra, the basilisk, deserving of the most 
wretched end.” But in spite of this he exalts him in The 
Prince as a model, because he sees in his methods, frightful 
and immoral as they are, the only hope of success in the 
task which the New Prince has to face in the Italy of his 
day. What these methods are he reserves for explicit 
treatment in the third section of his work. 

The second group of chapters (xii—xiv) 1s, as we have 
already remarked, devoted to military matters. Machiavelli 
writes with an Bpuioue intensity of conviction. His purpose 
in writing is eminently practical: ‘‘ My aim,’ he says, 
“is to write for the advantage of him who understands me.” 
He descants on the curse of mercenary armies, his argument 
being pointed by the stories of how Sforza betrayed Naples, 
Vitelli Florence, and Carmagnola Venice. He passes on 
to treat of the peril of trusting to foreign auxiliaries, with 
instances drawn from the disasters which Italy has suffered 
at the hands of French and Spanish allies. Finally, he 
emphasises the importance of military skill to princes, and 
shows how they can acquire it—practically, by exercises and 
by the pursuit of the chase; theoretically, by the study of 
history and the lives of great commanders. 

The third group of chapters (xv—xvill) brings us to the 
heart of the treatise, and displays to us the essence of what 
is called . Machiavellism: that is to say, politics divorced from 
ethics. The keynoté is struck in the sentence: “That 
man who will profess honesty in all his actions must needs 
go to ruin among so many that are dishonest; there- 
fore it is necessary for a prince who desires to preserve 
himself to be able to make use of that honesty and to lay it 
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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


aside as need shall require.” And as with honesty, so with 
mercy and compassion. ‘Then follows a detailed examina- 
tion of the circumstances in which—dquite irrespective of 
moral considerations—a prince should be liberal or parsi- 
monious, cruel or merciful, faithful to his word or perfidious. 
The illustrations by means of which Machiavelli points his 
narrative throw a lurid light into the abysses of Italian 
politics in the Renaissance period, especially when, as his 
supreme example of successful mendacity and merciless 
treachery, Machiavelli selects Pope Alexander VI. To 
the problems raised by Machiavellism we must return 
ina moment. They are living and burning problems, and 
it is by reason of their continuing urgency that the present- 
day study of Machiavelli is worth while. 

The fourth group of chapters (xix—xxv) sinks from the 
giddy heights of political non-morality attained in the pre- 
ceding group down to a rather dull level of commonplace 
maxims of prudence. ‘The prince is instructed how to 
avoid contempt and hatred, how to secure popularity, how 
to acquire respect and reputation, how to steer a happy 
mean between excessive hauteur and undue familiarity, 
and soon. The unhappy examples of Ferrante of Naples 
and Ludovico of Milan point the moral and adorn the 
tale. 

The fifth and final division of The Prince consists of the 
solitary and magnificent twenty-sixth chapter, in which the 
Medici are exhorted to rise to the height of the great op- 
portunity which lies before them, to establish their authority, 
to call the Italians to arms, to expel the barbarians, and to 
reign as saviours of their country. How does this splen- 
did and stirring appeal—the herald cry of Italian national 
unity—accord with the diabolical devices described in 
chapters xv—xviil as appropriate for the realisation of the 
ideal? Neither to Machiavelli nor to his contemporaries 

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did there appear anything incongruous between a noble 
political end and grossly immoral means. How does the 
case seem to us? 


Vil 


Machiavelli was above and beyond all else a prophet and 
a preacher of the principle of patriotism and the idea of the 
national state. Now, on the one hand, the principle of 
patriotism seems to be a lower ideal than the cosmopolitan 
conception which had dominated the Middle Ages ; and 
the idea of the national state appears to be a less lofty one 
than the medizval idea of a Universal Christendom based 
upon religion and ruled by a Vicegerent of God. But, 
on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that the medi- 
eval principle of Christian brotherhood, and the medizval 
ideal of an ecumenical Church-State, had never been even 
approximately realised in fact. The horrid actuality of 
the thousand years which separated Machiavelli from the 
deposition of Romulus Augustulus had been a weltering 
chaos of conflicting clans, struggling tribes, anarchic fiefs, 
and encroaching kingships, stirred up incessantly by re- 
bellious bishops, and kept at the boil by fulminating Popes. 
Never had there been'a more marked contrast between 
theory and practice; never had the Mappa Mundi been 
more entirely unrelated to the facts of human geography. 
Hence, if in the realm of abstract doctrine the national 
state suggested a decline from the unity of Christendom, 
in the realm of concrete politics it stood for an immense 
and incalculably beneficial advance upon the parochialism, 
localism, tribalism, and feudalism which had been the actual 
condition of the Dark Ages. Machiavelli clearly perceived 
the enormous advantages which France had gained by the 
absorption of the great fiefs, and by the centralisation of 
112 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


the government of the country under the Capetian and 
Valois kings. Not less clearly did he see the benefits 
which had accrued to Spain through her unification under 
the Catholic kings. From his observations he concluded 
that it was vitally necessary for Italy to pass through the 
same process of consolidation, and to attain to the same 
condition of unity. 

The ideal form of national state which Machiavelli pro- 
jected for Italy was undoubtedly a republic modelled upon 
the Roman commonwealth as portrayed by Livy. But he 
realised that the conditions which had rendered possible 
the unification of the peninsula under the old city-state 
were absent in his own day. If the consolidation of France 
and Spain had been effected only by means of the force and 
craft of exceptionally able monarchs, how much more did 
the disorder of Italy demand the exercise of the vigour, 
the subtlety, the swiftness, and the secrecy which an auto- 
cratic prince alone could provide! ‘The all-important thing 
was the establishment of the national state. Both the form 
which it should take and the means by which it should be 
established were secondary concerns. - 

This question of means brings us to the heart of the 
Machiavelli problem. For the essence of Machiavellism 
is the doctrine that the end justifies the means, It implies 
the deliberate dissociation of politics from ethics, and the 
assertion that the plea of ‘ reasons of state’ is a sufficient 
answer to any and every accusation of cruelty or deceit. 
Perhaps the two clearest summaries of the doctrine presented 
by Machiavelli himself are the following, the first from 
the Discourses, the second from The Prince: ‘‘ Where the 
deliberation is wholly touching the safety of the fatherland 
there ought to be no consideration of just or unjust, pitiful 
or cruel, honourable or dishonourable, but rather, all other 
respect being laid aside, that course ought to be taken which 

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may preserve the life and maintain the liberty thereof” ; 
and, “‘ Let a prince, therefore, take the surest courses he 
can to maintain his life and state ; the means shall always 
be thought honourable” ?—the means specially alluded 

to by Machiavelli being those which he has just been 
describing as analogous to the merciless ferocity of the lion 
and the unscrupulous craftiness of the fox. The statesman, 
in Machiavelli’s view, is emancipated from the ordinary 
restraints of morality. In the interests of his country he is 
entitled, nay, is on occasion required, to commit acts of 
violence and to perpetrate frauds which if performed on his 
own account in private life would brand him as a criminal 
and a scoundrel. He must not shrink, if reasons of state 
demand it, from any cruelty however great, or from any 
perfidy however base. 

That is Machiavellism. It is the doctrine that terror- 
ism and treachery are legitimate instruments in politics. 
Machiavelli does not urge their indiscriminate use. He 

“=recognises the fact that they are dangerous instruments, 
prefers the normal employment of the safer implements of 
ethics, blames such operators as Agathocles of Syracuse 
and Oliverotto of Fermo for employing them too freely. 

—.. But, all the same, he regards them as essential elements 
in the statesman’s equipment, and he severely condemns 
those who have failed to employ them when emergency 
has demanded their use. Romulus, he considers, was 
justified in slaying his brother Remus, for unity of control 
was necessary for the successful founding of Rome; hence 
“though the act accuse him, the effect excuses him—for 
though he that uses violence to waste is blameworthy, not 
he that uses it for redress and order.’”’* Similarly he de- 
fends the sanguinary severity of Brutus after his overthrow 
1 Discourses, ITI, xli. 2 The Prince, ch. xxviii. 
3 JTbid., ch. viii. 4 Discourses, I, ix. 


114 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


of the Tarquinian monarchy, in words which might have 
been employed by Lenin in 1917: ‘ This is always well 
known to those who read ancient stories, how that after 
the change of a state, either from a republic into a tyranny 
or from a tyranny into a republic, some memorable execu- 
tion upon the enemies of the present condition is needful.” 4 
Conversely he contemptuously condemns Gian Paolo 
Baglioni of Perugia, who, when he was resisting the papal 
claims to overlordship over his city, failed through squeam- 
ishness and ‘‘ base cowardice ” to avail himself of a golden 
opportunity of decisive victory and everlasting renown 
which Fortune offered to him. Pope Julius II having 
rashly visited Perugia, unguarded, together with twenty- 
four cardinals, Gian Paolo omitted to exterminate the lot 
of them. ‘‘ He had not the courage,”’ says Machiavelli, 
“to do an exploit that every one would have admired, a 
deed that would have given him an everlasting memory, 
an act whose greatness would have surpassed all infamy.” 2 
His weakness was aggravated by the fact that the cardinals 
“had the best of all their jewels with them!” Hence, 
when some time afterward Pope Julius overthrew him and 
strung him up on a gibbet, he paid a fitting penalty for his 
indecision and lack of enterprise. 

As with violence, so with craft and fraud: ‘“‘ How com- 
mendable it is in a prince to keep his word and live with 
integrity, not making use of cunning and subtlety, every 
one knows well; yet we see by experience in these our days 
that those princes have effected great matters who have 
made small reckoning of keeping their words and have 
known by their craft to turn and wind men about and in 
the end have overcome those who have grounded upon 
the truth.’3 And again, “It is necessary for a prince 
that will achieve great matters to learn to be a cunning 

1 Discourses, III, iii. 2 T[bid., I, xxvii. 3 The Prince, ch. xviii. 


IIS 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


deceiver,” } for “that man who will profess honesty in all his 
actions must needs go to ruin amongst so many that are dis- 
honest. Wherefore it is necessary for a prince who desires to 
preserve himself to be able to make use of honesty or to lay 
it aside as need shall require.” 2 Machiavelli in both The 
Prince and the Discourses gives many examples, drawn from 
history and his own observation, of what he regards as 
successful chicanery. But he reserves his highest eulogies 
for Pope Alexander VI, who, he says, “ never did anything 
else than deceive men, and never meant otherwise, and always 
found whom to work upon.” “ Yet,’’ he adds, “‘ never was 
there a man who would protest more effectually, or aver 
anything with more solemn oaths and observe less than he; 
nevertheless, his deceptions all succeeded, for he knew how 
to play his part cunningly.” 3 

If, however, Machiavelli admires one ruler for his con- 
summate mendacity and another for his remorseless ferocity, 
he sees the perfect combination of the qualities of the lion 
and the fox—terrorism and treachery—in Cesar Borgia, 
to whose baleful career he again and again recurs, as though 
irresistibly fascinated. Cesar Borgia in 1502—the year 
of his highest power and luckiest fortuné—supplies the 
perfect model of the methods by which alone, Machiavelli 
thinks, the overthrow of the condottieri, the expulsion of the 
foreigners, and the salvation of Italy can be secured. 


Vill 


What is the verdict of history upon Machiavellism—that 
is to say, upon the doctrine that the end justifies the means, 
that ethics have no relevance to politics, that reasons of 
state excuse all deviations from the moral law, and that 
Satan may properly be called in to cast out Satan? The 


1 Discourses, II, xiii. 2 The Prince, ch. xx. 8 Tbid., ch. xviii. 


116 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


. ry e ° * @ ; es » a i 
verdict of history is, it seems to me, one of decisive con- ? /)/)*' 
demnation and emphatic rejection. And yet the doctrine | 4» / 


has persisted, and still persists, with a strange vitality. In 
the sixteenth century, in spite of the denunciation of both 
Catholic and Protestant theologians, The Prince became. the 
text-book of monarchs; while the unscrupulous practices 
which it recognised established themselves as the common 
devices of politicians. ‘The massacre of St Bartholomew’s 
Day 1572, for instance, was regarded as a perfect exposition 
of Machiavellian craft and violence. In the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, when the furies of the wars of 
religion had died down, the more sanguinary aspects of 
Machiavellism ceased to display themselves so conspicu- 
ously as before, and its prime manifestations had to be 
sought in the dark intricacies of diplomacy. Napoleon I, 
however, was a Machiavellian in both senses of the term: 
he believed equally in violence and in fraud as legitimate, 
and at times necessary, instruments of policy. His sinister 
influence dominated many of the makers of nineteenth- 
century history, and his Machiavellian principles found 
disciples and exemplars in such men as Metternich, Louis 
Philippe, Napoleon III, Bismarck, and Cavour. 

In the Italy of Cavour, indeed, a formal revival of the 
Machiavellian cult took place in the middle of the nineteenth 
century. Machiavelli was recognised and exalted as a 
pioneer of the unification of the peninsula, and the methods 
which he had suggested as necessary for the realisation of 
his ideal in the sixteenth century were accepted as appro- 
priate and inevitable in the laterage. But it was in Germany 
that the most formidable recrudescence of Machiavellism 
took place. ‘The philosophy of Hegel prepared the Teu- 
tonic mind for an exaltation of the State. The disintegra- 
tion of the Fatherland after the Napoleonic wars made its 
reconstruction on a national basis imperative. The task 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of reconstruction was one of almost superhuman difficulty, 
and it seemed to call for methods of “‘ blood and iron,” and 
methods of craft and guile, similar to those which Machia- 
velli had expounded and Cesar Borgia had exemplified. 
Hence men like Bismarck adopted and applied them, and 
men like Treitschke defended and glorified them. The 
apparent success of Machiavellian methods in the making 
of the German Empire caused the principles of The Prince 
to establish themselves as fundamental postulates of 
Prussian politics. In 1914 they received their perfect ex- 
position in the shameless perfidy which violated the solemn 
guarantees of Belgian neutrality, and in the diabolical 
cruelty which sought to extinguish Belgian independence 
in agony and blood. From Germany, as part of the heritage 
of Karl Marx, Machiavellism spread to Russia, where 
since 1917 it has displayed itself in the appalling terrorism 
and abysmal treachery of Bolshevism. Hence we see now, 
even more clearly than Lord Morley could see when in 1897 
he delivered his Romanes Lecture, that Machiavelli “ repre- 
sents certain living forces in our actual world,” and that, as 
Lord Acton remarked, “ he is a contemporary influence.” 

Nevertheless, I hold that both the conscience of mankind 
and the verdict of history have declared themselves de- 
cisively against Machiavellism. The one says that it is 
theoretically indefensible, the other that it is practically 
unsound. (1) J¢ is theoretically indefensible. ‘The State is 
not, as Machiavelli and his disciples regard it, an end in 
itself. It is merely a means to the good life of its mem- 
bers individually and collectively. It is a moral institution 
whose supreme purpose is the definition and maintenance 
of justice. ustitia remota, quid aliud est regnum quam 
grande latrocinium: in the absence of justice what is the 
state but organised brigandage on a large scale? AA state 
established for any other end than the realisation of the moral 
II8 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


law had better not exist at all. And this ethical end cannot 
be dissociated from the means by which its attainment is 
sought. ‘There must be congruity between the two. As 
well might you expect to gather figs from thistles as look 
for the fruit of justice from a root of violence and deceit. 
(2) lt is practically a failure. ‘The verdict of history is that 
Machiavellism has not in fact succeeded. In the long run 
the lion and the fox do not prevail; the cruelty of the one 
and the craft of the other not only do not save them, but 
are the very causes of their destruction. As Talleyrand 
might have said, Machiavellism is worse than a crime ; it 
isa mistake. In the sixteenth century Gentillet condemned 
it because of the ruin which it brought to those who 
practised it; in the seventeenth century Richelieu, who 
had no moral objection to it, warned his king against it 
because of its fatal consequences.1 In the eighteenth 
century Voltaire, who will not be suspected of Puritanism, 
in a famous letter to Frederick the Great of Prussia—one 
of the most consummate practitioners of the Machiavellian ' 
politic—condemned the art of The Prince: “‘ Cet art,” he 
said, ‘‘ que l’on doit mettre 4 cété de celui des Locustes et 
des Brinvilliers, a pu donner a quelques tyrans une puissance 
passagére, comme le poison peut procurer un héritage; 
mais il n’a jamais fait ni de grands hommes ni des hommes 
heureux, cela est bien certain.” In the nineteenth century 
Lord Morley concluded his Romanes Lecture in the same 
strain. After expounding and denouncing the Machia- 
vellian principle he says, ‘‘ The effect was fatal even for his 
own purpose, for what he put aside, whether for the sake 
of argument, or because he thought them in substance 
irrelevant, were nothing less than the living forces by which 
societies subsist and governments are strong.” 

These weighty opinions are borne out by the chronicle 

1 Richelieu, Testament Politique, ii, 6. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


of events. Machiavelli made shipwreck of his own life 
because with excessive subtlety and with shameless lack of 
principle he sought to run with the republican hare and — 
hunt with the Medicean hounds; when in 1527 the Medici 
fell and the republic was restored he found that he had 
succeeded in earning the ineradicable distrust of both 
parties. Hence he was left to die in dishonour, dis- 
illusionment, destitution, and disgust. Similarly his hero, 
Cesar Borgia, excited so unutterable a loathing and dread 
by his ferocity and perfidy that, wholly apart from ill- 
fortune, he was hounded out of Italy and sent to perish in 
the Pyrenees. ‘The record of the Machiavellians in all 
ages is the same—a brief and unsubstantial triumph due to 
terror and surprise, followed by permanent and irretrievable 
ruin when the conscience and the courage of mankind have 
revived. In our own day the perfidy and barbarity of the 
Germans toward the Belgians, which they hoped would 
carry them to speedy victory in the autumn of 1914, were 
the very causes which brought Britain, Italy, and America 
into the War against them, and ensured their ultimate 
defeat. The similar and even more atrocious crimes of 
the Russian Bolsheviks—ruthless cruelty and bottomless 
mendacity erected into a system and avowed with a brazen 
effrontery never before equalled—have not as yet completely 
worked out their appropriate and inevitable catastrophe. 
But they are very near doing so. No self-respecting Power 
will touch their blood-stained hands; no Power of any sort 
can trust their perjured word. They are outcasts from the 
community of nations, and their only hope of a brief post- 
ponement of their doom is to extend to other countries the 
depredations with which they have desolated their own. 

Signor Mussolini in Italy avows himself a Machiavellian 
and says, “I believe Machiavelli’s Prince to be the states- 
man’s supreme guide.” If he means, as he appears to, 
120 


NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 


no more than that a statesman must show strength, decision, 
resolution, all may be well. But if, as some of his followers 
seem to assume, he means that such deeds as the murder 
of Signor Matteotti are legitimate means of political pro- 
cedure, then—as the conscience of Italy and the civilised 
world has made abundantly clear—his day of authority will 
be short. 

To sum up the matter in a nutshell: Machiavelli with 
all his acuteness of observation had a singular faculty for 
failing to see factors of the first importance. Loudly as he 
professed to see things as they really were, he saw them as 
they really were not. Just as he depicted an art of war in 
which artillery played no part, so he depicted an art of 
government in which neither morals nor religion had any 
place. His estimate of human nature, on which his whole . 
political system was based, was radically mistaken. He — 
regarded man as entirely bad, and founded his system on 
that false assumption. He ignored goodness in man just 
as he ignored gunpowder in war. Goodness and gun- 
powder! Could a man of the early sixteenth century 
who professed to be practical have made two more colossal 
errors of omission? In the art of war the development 
of firearms has swept the Machiavellian precepts into ridi- 
cule and oblivion. In the art of politics the conscience 
of mankind has repudiated the Machiavellian maxims, and 
the experience of the human race has demonstrated their 
folly. The records of history tend to show that Socrates 
and Plato were right when they said that in the long run 
the knave and the fool are one and the same. For human 
society is established on moral foundations, and righteous- 
ness must in the end prevail. 

ye. b Tue Epiror 


I21I 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A. Primary SOURCES 


Tutte le Opere di Nicolo Machiavelli. 1550. 

Ll Principe, edited by L. A. Burd, with an Introduction by Lord Acton. 
18gI. 

The Peiies translated by N. H. Thomson. 1882. 

Discourses on Livy, translated by N. H.’Thomson. 1883. 

Historical, Political and Diplomatic Writings of Machiavelli, translated by 
C. E. Detmold. 4 vols. 1882. 


B. SECONDARY SOURCES 


Burp, L. A.: “ Machiavelli,” in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. 
1902. 

ean W. A.: History of Political Theories, Ancient and Medieval. 
IgIo. 

ee : Machiavelli and the Modern State. 1904. 

Feverein, E.: “ Zur Machiavelli-Frage,” in Historische Zeitschrift. 1868. 

Franck, A.: Réformateurs et publicistes de [ Europe, vol.i. 1864. 

Macautay, Lorp: ‘ Machiavelli,” in Critical and Historical Essays. 1827. 

Mancini, P. S.: Prelezioni con un Saggio sul Machiavelli. 1876. 

Mortty, Lorp: Machiavelli (‘The Romanes Lecture, 1897). 

Munpt, T.: Nicolo Machiavelli und das System der modernen Politik. 1867. 

Nitti, F.: Machiavelli nella Vita e nelle Opere. 1876. 

Owen, ].: Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. 1893. 

Symonps, J. A.: The Renaissance in Italy, vol.i, Chapters Vand VI. 1875. 

Tomasino, O.: La Vita e gli Scritti di Nicolo Machiavelli. 1883. 

Virart, P.: The Life and Times of Machiavelli (translated by Linda Villar). 
1878. 


122 


Vv 
SIR THOMAS MORE 


more familiarly than any other man of his century. 
Written in the first instance by his devoted admirers, 
his life has for us an intimacy that is indeed a valued posses- 
sion. In this, strangely enough, he shares the good for- 
tune of a man for whom he had but a qualified admiration. 
Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey and Roper’s Life of More stand 
in a place apart in early biography. Yet Wolsey’s life has 
been subjected to a fiercer light than More’s, and there 
are some who feel that More’s life has yet to be written. 
Probably nothing worth the saying remains to be said about 
his Utopia, but much that ought not to have been said about 
the so-called intolerance of its author’s later days has found 
a hearing mainly because we have not known our man. 
That More attached very definite importance to the 
influence of the experience he gained in the household of 
John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, is indicated by 
his references to the old Cardinal not only in his Utopia 
but also in his History of Richard JIJ*+ His admiration 
for Morton is significant when we recall the insistence with 
which, as archbishop, he had pursued his determination 
to bring under his discipline his provincial monasteries, 
and particularly the powerful Benedictine house of St 
Albans. ‘There was a rough, homespun virtue in Morton, 
a blunt directness that More admired, an intrepidity that 


1E is perhaps true to say of More that we know him 


1 For the question of More’s authorship of Richard III see Joseph Delcourt, 
Essai sur la langue de Siy Thomas More, pp. 388 ff. 


123 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


was not without influence on his admirer and struck in 
him an answering note. Morton was one of the great 
figures of the Renaissance in England, a good Englishman, 
a bold statesman, a wise builder, and a resolute reformer 
with a keen eye for soundness in essentials. While much 
of the first part of More’s Utopia is taken up with his analysis 
of the evils of the day, social and economic, we are conscious 
that Morton stands out before us as a man to whom the 
reform of such things was a matter of moment. One 
remark of More’s throws a strong light on the old man: 
“ He took delight many times with rough speech to prove 
what prompt wit and bold spirit were in every man.” And 
it was for the like qualities that Morton himself commended 
More, ‘‘in whose wit and towardness,’’ Roper tells us, 
“the Cardinal much delighted.” 

In this household of Renaissance culture, enrolled as a 
chaplain, although he apparently never proceeded beyond 
the degree of acolyte (1490), when More was twelve years 
old was the dramatist Henry Medwall. I never lose an 
opportunity of introducing Medwall to the notice of those 
admirers of More who do not already know his play of 
Fulgens and Lucres. It is based on a translation of a pretty 
story written more than fifty years earlier by a Petrarchan 
humanist of Pistoja. In it we find for the first time in our 
drama a romantic comedy of purely secular and social 
interest. It has, moreover, an admirably comic underplot 
provided by two boys who step in among the players as 
Roper says More used to do. The only copy of the play 
that has survived was printed by More’s brother-in-law, 
John Rastell, and although this copy has now gone to 
Mr Henry Huntington’s library in California he has made 
it available for scholars in an edition in facsimile. 

“For his better furtherance in learning ’’ Morton placed 
More at Oxford (1492-4), where he came under the 
124 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


influence of Grocyn and Linacre. In after years, when, 
having resigned his Chancellorship, he called his family 
about him to discuss with them how they might best econo- 
mise and what retrenchments they must make, he suggested 
as a fair level for their first descent a Lincoln’s Inn diet. 
If need be they might sink to the fare of an Inn of Chan- 
cery, and, at the very worst, fall to Oxford fare, ‘‘ so they 
kept companie and were merrie together.” The passage 
from Morton’s household to Oxford took all these stages 
in one leap, and his father, as if to bend him to his 
task and wean him of any softness developed in Morton’s 
household, ‘‘ so used the matter to the end that he should 
only follow his learning and study that he allowed him but 
only necessaries; nor not a penny he would give him to 
waste on pastime.” 

From Oxford he passed to New Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, 
whence he emerged an utter barrister, but also a confirmed 
humanist. He had both fulfilled and defeated his father’s 
strictest requirements, as he showed when he accepted in 
I 501 the invitation of Grocyn to read a course of lectures 
in Grocyn’s church, St Lawrence Jewry—the parish church 
of his father, John More—on the De Civitate Det. Whether 
any earlier example of such a reading by a layman in a City 
church can be cited I do not know, but it is safe to venture 
the opinion that none had done it at the age of twenty-three. 

One sees here the hand and influence of John Colet, 
who, since More had come down from Oxford, had returned 
from Italy and made himself felt by the new spirit he intro- 
duced into theological study. In his departure from the 
traditional methods of scholastic interpretation and in his 
zeal for a reform of the spirit as well as the letter of doctrinal 
teaching Colet had in More a devoted admirer. He was 
an outspoken and intrepid reformer, of strict but humane 
principles, a shrewd idealist, one of the thinkers of the time 


125 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


to whom More was indebted for some of the many criticisms 
of contemporary life that we find in his Usopia. ‘Thus in 
his Exposition of Romans we read that “ the law of nations 
is the Jaw of our corrupter Nature ; a law which has brought 
in ideas of meum and tuum, that is, of property and robbery; 
ideas clean contrary to a good and unsophisticated nature, 
for that would have a community in all things.”’ ‘To Colet 
the most disadvantageous peace is to be preferred to the 
justest war, nor was More himself more emphatic about 
the perversity of the legal mind and the futility of penalising 
the ignorant and irresponsible. As Hythlodaye puts it, 
‘We first make thieves and then punish them.” The two 
men had more in common than merely their views and 
aspirations. In both there was a certain stubbornness of 
temper and inflexible self-control, and these qualities sprang 
in both men from simple religious conviction and experi- 
ence which to Erasmus appeared to have in it something 
of superstition. 

Erasmus’ first visit to England in 1499 was an event of 
supreme importance both to himself and More. If the 
zeal and austerer virtues of Colet awoke a response in 
More, so too did Erasmus’ avidity for the humanities, his 
liberal scholarship, his reckless and witty satire, and his 
hatred of pedantry. But before his return in 1505 More 
was much in the company of a third scholar, the man whom 
Colet secured later to be the first High Master of the school 
he founded in St Paul’s Churchyard, William Lilly, author 
of the famous grammar. ‘The two meditated the serious 
step of taking priest’s orders. ‘They appear to have lived 
together for some time within the precincts of the Charter- 
house. The expression which More applies to Lilly, 
clarissimus mearum rerum socius, seems to refer to something 
more than common tastes and pursuits, though they were 
associated in a joint translation of Greek epigrams. In a 
126 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


charming letter to Colet, who was in the country, More 
gives us a pretty picture of his associates at this time. 
‘““Do come back,” he writes, “though here in town the 
expanse above is cut off not by the horizon, but by house 
tops. In your absence Grocyn is the sole director of my 
life, Linacre is my tutor in study, and my concerns, all of 
them, I share with dear Lilly.” 

Yet all along it has been obvious that More was not to 
become a recluse. Weare told by Cresacre More that 
““when More determined to marry he proposed to himself 
- for a pattern in life a singular layman, John Picus, Earl of 
Mirandula, . . . whose life he translated and set out.” 
More’s interest in Pico was probably derived through 
Colet. The facts of Colet’s Italian journey are obscure, 
but Lupton seems to be fairly confident that he stayed in 
Florence and may have come under Savonarola’s influence. 
He may well, indeed, have been in the city in 1495 at 
the time of Pico’s death. If so, one can well understand 
More’s interest in the astonishing young humanist who had 
invited to Florence the fiery preacher who was to attempt 
to set up a strictly ordered Christian state—a Christian 
theocracy in which private interests should be sacrificed to 
the common good, and in the hearts of whose citizens God 
should reign. Pico died on the eve of this experiment, 
and More’s life of him makes no reference to Savonarola’s 
theocratic scheme. What appealed to More in Pico was 
his resolution of the conflicting claims of scholarship, affairs, 
and the religious life. The little work is dedicated to “‘ his 
beloved sister in Christ Joyeuce Leigh,” ! who, I find from 
her mother’s will (1507), was a nun of the Minoresses of 
Aldgate. The Life of Pico belongs, I think, to the close 
of More’s Carthusian days. 


1 Joyce Leigh’s brother was Edward Leigh, later Archbishop of York, a 
critic of Erasmus’ New Testament. The Leighs and the Mores were fellow- 
parishioners. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


He emerged from the comparative seclusion of his 
chamber-fellowship with Lilly in the Charterhouse to fall into 
trouble as a Member of Parliament in 1504 for opposing— 
‘“a beardless boy ”—an exorbitant demand of Henry VII ; 
wherefore his father was imprisoned and fined. A year 
later (1505) he married Jane Colt, of Netherhall in Essex, 
and when Erasmus visited the young householders in the 
first year of their married life the two Hellenists interested 
themselves in translating Lucian. Erasmus has left in his 
Colloqguies an amusing but significant picture of More and 
Jane Colt, which Mr P. S. Allen has identified for us. 


Erasmus writes as follows : 


A young gentleman married a maiden of seventeen years who had 
been educated in the country and who, being inexperienced, he 
trusted to form easily in manners to hisown humour. He began to 
instruct her in literature and music, and by degrees to repeat the 
heads of sermons which she heard, and generally to acquire the ac- 
complishments he wished her to possess. Used at home to nothing 
but gossip and play she at length refused to submit to further train- 
ing and when pressed about it threw herself down and beat her head 
on the ground as though she wished for death. Her husband con- 
cealed his resentment and carried her off for a holiday to her home. 
Out hunting with his father-in-law he told his troubles and was 
urged to use his authority and beat her. He replied that he knew 
his power but had much rather that she were persuaded than come to 
these extremities. “he father seized a proper moment and looking 
severely on the girl told her how homely she was, how disagreeable, 
and how lucky to have a husband at all; yet he had found her the 
best-natured man in the world, and she disobeyed him. She returned 
to her husband and threw herself on the ground saying, “‘ From this 
time forward you shall find me another sort of person.” She kept 
her resolution, and to her dying day went readily and cheerfully about 
any duty, however simple, if her husband would have it so.1 


1 John Colt’s confidence in More is shown in his will, drawn up (1521) ten 
years after his daughter’s death. He left ten marks a year to ‘‘ Sir Thomas 
More, Knyght, to the fynding of my young son Thomas Colt till he come to 
the age of xx yeres and he to order hym and bring hym up in lerning as he 
thinketh best.’” We may also note that to his “‘ son More ”’ he left his best col. 


128 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


Here we must pause for a moment to consider the trans- 
lations from Lucian. Whatever deficiencies there may have 
been in More’s Greek when he had finished his course at 
Lincoln’s Inn, his intimacy with Grocyn, Linacre, and his 
friend Lilly had more than made good. He was probably 
familiar with as much Greek as he allowed Hythlodaye to 
introduce into Utopia. But if we picture Erasmus dis- 
covering his younger friend prepared in the first year of 
his married life for relaxation we may imagine how happily 
Lucian met the situation. Here one learnt how to con- 
trovert without heat, how to undermine the entrenchments 
of pedantry and ignorance by irony, and tease the adversary 
by raillery into some acknowledgment of the truth. Above 
all, one learnt to be daring in the invention of ingenious 
conceits. Ina word, here was something that went to the 
making of Utopia along with Plato. I suppose it would be 
considered most improper to describe the Usopia as Lucianic, 
but I wonder whether Lucian has had as much credit for 
it as he deserves! But More himself was Lucianic in his 
mastery of irony, and therefore he confounds the simple. 
An example may be appropriate. 

His sister Joan married a lawyer of the Middle Temple, 
John Rastell of Coventry, whose father was of the quorum 
for Warwickshire along with the famous Sir ‘Thomas 
Littleton. Rastell was appointed coroner of Coventry (in 
succession to his father) soon after his marriage. More 
visited his sister in 1507, and in 1519, by way of showing 
the infatuation and perversity of the kind of man who 
was attacking the New Testament of Erasmus, he told 
an amusing story of an incident that befell him during 
his visit. A certain friar, an old Franciscan, had won a 
remarkable following in the city by urging the efficacy of 


1 The dialogues and declamations that More published were the Tyvannicide 
(Henry VII was on the throne), the Liar, the Cynic, and the Necromantia. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 
Our Lady’s Psalter. More had hardly alighted when the 


question was put to him whether a man could possibly 
be damned who read Our Lady’s Psalter daily. More’s 
retort that it was “‘ an easy way to heaven ”’ did not suffice. 
He was asked out to supper, and the friar himself turned up 
followed by a boy carrying his evidences. The question 
was asked again. More remained silent, but the friar 
held forth for two hours. Then More replied judicially 
that though a prince might grant a pardon at the Queen- 
mother’s request, he would hardly make a law granting 
general immunity to all who should perform some office 
for her. But the friar was extolled and More laughed at 
for a fool. 

More’s anecdote is confirmed in a strange way by the will 
of Thomas Bonde, who died during Rastell’s coronership, 
bequeathing to the town the well-known hospital at Bablake, 
of which Coventry is still justly proud, for ten poor men of 
the two great guilds, “ the said ten poor men being bounden 
every day to say three times Our Lady’s Psalter for all 
the brethren and sustren of the guild.” In the same year, 
1507, there died at Coventry a wealthy merchant, Richard 
Cook, who appointed Rastell overseer of his will and be- 
queathed “‘one Bible in English” to Trinity Church, 
Coventry, and another to the parish church of Walsall. 
One wonders whether this does not suggest a note of 
Lollardy. If so, it is interesting to find that More’s brother- 
in-law was looked upon by the donor as the kind of man who 
was likely to see the matter carried through. It would 
be interesting to know more about this “‘ Bible in English.” 
We know More’s attitude toward the “ easy way to heaven,” 
but no more than that. It is perhaps significant that 
Rastell resigned his coronership a year later and came to 
London. 

Meanwhile Erasmus had visited Italy, and when he 
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SIR THOMAS MORE 


returned to England in 1509, the year of the accession of 
Henry VIII, he wrote in More’s house in Bucklersbury 
his Praise of Folly, the Encomium Morie. He remained 
in England for five years engaged on the great work of his 
life, his edition of the New Testament and the Letters of 
St Jerome. His time was spent between Cambridge and 
London, and he was well befriended by Warham, Mountjoy, 
and Fisher. ‘These were the years immediately preceding 
the Utopia. ‘The years of Erasmus’ sojourn in England 
coincide in part with More’s tenure of an important legal 
office, as Under-Sheriff of the City, to which he was appointed 
on September 3, 1510. He was granted leave of absence 
to join the King’s embassy to Flanders on May 6, 1514, 
and resigned finally to be absorbed in the royal service on 
July 23, 1518. It was shortly after this that Erasmus 
wrote the famous letter to Von Hutten which may be called 
his “* Life of More.” 

More was, he tells us, a man of medium height, of a 
clear complexion in which there shone the faint glow of 
health. His hair was dark auburn, his eyes full of happi- 
ness: a pleasant, friendly, cheerful face, with a readiness 
to smile, inclined toward merriment rather than dignity. 
His hands were a little coarse; he was careless of his 
personal appearance, and his general health indicated that 
he might live long. No one could be less fastidious about 
his food. His drink was the thinnest of small beer; wine 
he drank in a loving-cup, lest he should seem unsociable ; 
milk foods and fruit and particularly eggs were his favourite 
dishes ; he had a penetrating but not aggressive voice, and 
his speech was singularly articulate and deliberate. He 
did not sing, but he was fond of music. In dress he liked 
simplicity, and he had nousefor formal politeness. Because 
he held equality dear, and hated the high hand, he shunned 


intimacy with princes at one time. Of freedom and leisure 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


he could never have enough, yet when need arose no one 
was more ready to take trouble. His straightforward, 
loyal nature endowed him for friendship, and in his circle 
of friends were men of every degree. His chief enjoy- 
ment in life was the company of like-minded men, candid 
and sincere. He was a delightful man to live with. He 
had a gift for cheering the depressed, and from his earliest 
days he delighted in jokes. As a young man he wrote 
and acted in little plays; he amused himself with epigrams 
and took special pleasure in Lucian. It was he who made 
Erasmus write The Praise of Folly. He got mirth out of 
everything, even the gravest matters. With women he was 
full of jesting and fun. He had the philosophical mind. 
Like the Pythagorean philosopher, wandering through the 
market and watching the buyers and sellers, no one was 
less swayed by public opinion, and no one showed more 
common sense in his inferences. He loved animals, and 
studied their individuality. He kept all sorts of birds, 
and had a menagerie of apes, foxes, beavers, weasels, and ~ 
_ other rare beasts. His house was full of interesting things. 
In his relations with women a union of spirits meant more 
for him than bodily charms. As a young man he took up 
Greek literature and philosophy, to the distress of his father, 
an upright man, an authority on English law and in general 
a man of sound sense, who, to check his son’s proclivities, 
cut off all supplies and indeed almost disowned him; but 
the profession of law in England was the highway to success, 
and when Erasmus knew him no professional lawyer had a 
better practice than More. Yet old men and priests had 
attended his lectures on Augustine’s City of God and did not 
disdain to learn sacred things from a young layman. At 
the same time, in spite of his interest in Greek literature and 
philosophy, he had turned with all his strength to preparing — 
himself for the priesthood. He had almost embraced 
I 32 


$ 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


this ministry, but, being unable to master the desire for 
a wife, he made his choice. “‘ He married a young girl 
of good family, who had been brought up in her parents’ 
home in the country; choosing her yet undeveloped that 
he might more readily mould her to his tastes. He had her 
taught literature and trained her in every kind of music. 
She was just growing into a charming life’s companion for 
him when she died,” leaving him with four children. To 
secure the welfare of his children he married a widow of 
a London citizen, whom he trained to compliance by his 
buoyant gaiety. With the same gaiety and charm he 
ruled his whole household. Money had no charms for him. 
When his household was provided for, and the well-being 
of his children secured, he spent freely. In his legal prac- 
tice he thought more of the advantage of his clients than 
his own. He was much beloved in the City. Indeed, 
he had resolved to be content with his position there, but 
his sound conduct of business on embassies made that im- 
possible. Henry VIII dragged him to Court—‘dragged’ 
is the only word. He had a genius for arbitration, yet no 
one ever induced him to accept a present. It was their 
common studies that brought More and Erasmus together. 
Fis first years were given to poetry; then for a long time 
he experimented to acquire a flexible prose style. He 
took special pleasure in paradoxical themes, because they 
supplied a keener exercise for ingenuity. Thus while 
he was still a young man he worked upon a dialogue in 
which he maintained Plato’s principle of community in 
all things, even in wives. In order to see what progress 
he had made he invited Erasmus to complete with him and 
reply to Lucian’s Tyrannicide. Wis purpose in the Usopia 
was to show whence evils spring in states, but he modelled 
it on his knowledge of the English Constitution. No one 
was happier at impromptu speaking. He was a man of 


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true piety ; his religious practices were definite and regular ; 
when he spoke of the world to come you could see that he 
was speaking with assurance. 

I have given the foregoing picture of More at some 
length, because it describes the man as Erasmus had come 
to know him during his four visits to England between 
1499 and 1516: and particularly during his lengthy 
sojourn here in the five years from 1509 to 1514. ‘The 
Lutheran revolt had not broken out when Erasmus carried 
off More’s Lucian for Froben to print at Basel. Of Von 
Hutten, at whose request Erasmus had drawn this portrait 
of More, this only need be said: that he was in part at 
least the author of Epistole Obscurorum Virorum, the coarsest 
of caricatures of the monks, but so witty that many attributed 
it to Erasmus. I see no reason to doubt that, as Erasmus 
suggests, it was More’s admiration for the satirical wit 
of Von Hutten that led to the request for a sketch of the 
author of Utopia. ‘That Von Hutten becamea violent cham- 
pion of Luther is only too well known, but in 1519 the 
Lutheran storm had not fully developed. 

Erasmus left England in 1514. In that year More 
obtained leave of absence on May 6 from the Court of 
Aldermen to accompany the embassy to Flanders. He left. 
in the spring of the following year, but in the meantime 
the City had been greatly stirred by the tragic affair of the 
heresy and death of Richard Hunne. A careful investiga- 
tion of the facts of Hunne’s case will be found in Miss 
Jeffries Davis’ article on ‘‘ Ecclesiastical History’ in the | 
Victoria County History of London, where its significance 
in the story of the Reformation in London is justly empha- 
sised. Hunne was found hanged in the Christmas of 1514 
in the Lollards’ ‘Tower, where he was awaiting a charge 
of refusing the customary burial gift or mortuary claimed by 
the priest of a Stepney church on the occasion of the burial 


134 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


of Hunne’s infant son. Many in the City said that Hunne 
had been put to death, and this view the coroner’s inquest 
upheld. A subsequent inquiry traversed this verdict, and 
More felt so strongly the iniquity of the verdict given at 
the coroner’s inquest that he resurveyed the whole case 
in his Dialogue of Heresies in 1528. ‘There were other 
charges pending against Hunne that explain More’s atti- 
tude. He was the spokesman of a general attack against 
bishops and priests: he was an open supporter of the heretic 
Joan Baker : he had, moreover, in his keeping divers English 
books prohibited and damned by the law—as the Apocalypse 
in English, Epistles and Gospels in English, Wycliffe’s 
works, and other erroneous books “in which he hath been 
a long time accustomed to read, teach and study daily.” 
From the point of view of the ecclesiastical historian the 
interest of Hunne’s case lies in the fact that his resistance 
to the claims of the clergy to offerings was supported by 
popular feeling in the City, where the whole question of 
tithes and offerings was in debate. ‘Though the coroner’s 
inquest had found for murder the ecclesiastical court had 
traversed the finding and post mortem adjudged Hunne a 
heretic. His goods thus became confiscate to the Crown, 
and his daughters Margaret and Mary became the King’s 
wards. More’s brother-in-law, John Rastell, was rewarded 
for his services in the French war by a grant on terms | 
of the lands, tenements, goods, and debts of the heretic 
Richard Hunne, together with the wardship of Hunne’s 
two daughters. It is interesting to learn that Rastell 
had in mind that the two girls would in due time become 
the wives of his own sons John and William. 

The Hunne case, therefore, was exciting London on the 
eve of More’s departure for Flanders, where his Usopia was 
to have its birth. I do not admit that there is any incon- 
sistency in More’s Utopian views on religious toleration 


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and his attitude toward the Hunne case. It is, of course, 
the same attitude that led him subsequently into his attacks 
on Luther and to his controversial writings. His attitude 
toward heresy was defined before he wrote his Uropia, 
and he never departed from it; but to this question we 
shall return presently. 

The embassy to Flanders in 1515 kept More away from 
England over six months, but it led to the establishment 
of intimacy with Cuthbert Tunstall, his fellow-ambassador, 
Jerome Busleiden of Mechlin, a collector and bibliophile, 
and, above all, with Peter Giles, the good friend of Erasmus. 
The diptych of Erasmus and Giles which Quintin Matsys 
painted for presentation to More in 1517 ought to appear 
as a frontispiece to every proper edition of the Usopia, for 
the famous “‘ second book ”’ occupied a good part of More’s 
leisure time while he enjoyed the company of this friend 
of Erasmus. If he finished while he was abroad Hythlo- 
daye’s narrative account of the ideal pagan state, nothing 
could be more natural on his return home than to set out 
by way of introduction and contrast the same adventurer’s 
experience of England. But something should be said 
of More’s attitude toward the publication of his book. 
This has been worked out admirably by Mr Allen. Early 
in September 1516 More entrusted his manuscript to 
Erasmus, who was to look after the rest of the business— 
that 1s, get it published. Three weeks later he wrote 
again, Showing some anxiety that it should come out soon, 
and particularly that it should be supported by commenda- 
tory letters, not from scholars only, but also from well- 
known public men. It is interesting to find that he had 
kept his secret from Tunstall, for he asks Erasmus whether 
he has yet been let into it. Early in October More 
received an answer, reporting progress; and in the middle 
of the month Erasmus wrote to Giles, inviting him to send 
136 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


a preface, addressed preferably to Busleiden, not to himself. 
On October 31 More again wrote, wondering whether 
Tunstall and the others liked it. One gathers from this 
letter that More was distinctly concerned as to what men 
of learning might make of his communistic state. In the 
middle of November Erasmus reported that Utopia was in 
the printer’s hands, and three weeks later More had received 
Tunstall’s compliments. ‘‘ You cannot think how elated I 
am, how I have grown in stature and hold my head higher ; 
so constantly do I imagine myself in the part of sovereign 
of Utopia. . . . But alas! the coming of daylight has dis- 
pelled the dream and shaken me off my throne, and sends 
me back to the daily mill of the courts.” 

On December 15 he writes to Erasmus, “‘I am daily 
expecting my Usopia, with the feelings of a mother awaiting 
the return of her son from abroad.”” On January 4 Mount- 
joy had received a copy from Erasmus, and More’s period 
of waiting was over. ‘This brief statement shows clearly 
enough that More was conscious that this was no ordinary 
event. If the world now recognises in his little book one 
of its greatest masterpieces, is it to be wondered at that 
its author was more than ordinarily anxious as the time 
of its publication drew near? Erasmus seems to have been 
a little dubious about the venture, and it was not until 
he contributed his prefatory letter to Froben’s later edition 
that he spoke out; by which time the book had been gener- 
ally acclaimed by the cosmopolitan world of scholars. 

In his younger days, as we have already seen, More took 
special pleasure in developing themes of a paradoxical 
nature, which provided a keen exercise for his ingenuity ; 
and at one time he had worked upon a dialogue in which 
he maintained Plato’s principle of community in all things. 
Of this earlier experiment in Utopianism we know no more, 
but his seven months’ sojourn in the Low Countries in the 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


stimulating society of his scholarly and friendly hosts must, 
as it does with all of us when we are under the exciting 
influence of foreign experience, have awakened all that was 
keenest and most entertaining in him. ‘That he should 
be called upon to explain to his friends his view of the state 
of things in England and to compare it with that which he 
saw around him is natural enough. And Erasmus is right 
in describing Usopia as an attempt to show whence spring 
the evils of states. If in his lectures on the De Civitate 
Dei he had distinguished, as St Augustine does, the State 
or the city of men from the Church or the City of God, 
it was with the city of men, the State, that Usopia dealt. 
He therefore in nowise handles in it the wider conception 
of St Augustine that ultimately and in every real sense 
the true State is the Church. ‘That this was More’s central 
position his whole life is a witness not less than his death. 
Like St Augustine he felt the demand for absolute authority 
in a capricious world; the State must merge in the Church, 
the civil power become the weapon of the Church, legis- 
lator and magistrate be but sons of the Church, bound 
to carry out the Church’s aims; the Empire must be the 
instrument and vassal of the Church. If this is a fair 
statement of the practical teaching of the De Civitate Dei 
it is none the less ultimately the principle for which More 
gave his life. With this higher conception More is not 
concerned in his Usopia: he is dealing only with the city 
of men. His Uvsopia is the criticism of the social and 
political life of the day, by the Hellenist standards of one 
who has the shrewd practical instinct of the reformer. He 
applies in a somewhat Lucianic manner the philosophy 
he had learnt from Plato and the ideas he had got from 
Plutarch to conditions and problems that he found at his 
door. But it is as a citizen of the city of men, and not as 
a citizen of the City of God, that he takes his stand. ‘There- 
138 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


fore what More may say of religious toleration among the 
Utopians must be considered as having reference to such 
religion only as men by the light of their natural reason 
may enjoy. Impartiality would be a better name for it 
than toleration. Compulsion in matters of speculation 
would, of course, be unreasonable; nor, indeed, would it 
have been possible, had impartiality not been the rule of the 
Utopians, for Hythlodaye and his fellows to have taught 
the elements of Christianity to the Utopians. Subsequent 
history happens to have shown the State developing its 
control of the social organism, while the Church has virtually 
been disestablished ; but in More’s day, as in the days when 
our Litany took its present form, men could not think of 
false doctrine, heresy, and schism without coupling with 
them sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion, and attri- 
buting all of these evils to hardness of heart and contempt 
of God’s word and commandment—or, as More perhaps 
would have said, contempt of “ the Holy Church Universal.” 
In the epitaph which More composed shortly before his 
death for his own tomb—his last retort to the heretics— 
he described himself as ‘‘ not odious to the nobility nor 
unpleasant to the people, yet to thieves, murderers and 
heretics grievous.’”’ He saw in heresy a crime against 
social order, akin to theft and murder. It is no more 
reasonable to question More’s consistency in this matter 
by the dramatic dialogue of his Utopia than it would be to 
criticise his attitude to the divorce of Henry VIII—the 
ultimate cause of his death—by referring to Hythlodaye’s 
account of the easy terms on which the Utopians granted 
a separation. But I am at a loss to know how to think of 
those who derive any ideals of toleration from More’s 
Utopia. Politically it was the most intolerant of despotisms. 
Even the colonists had to hold themselves ready to return 
home to adjust or stabilise the population. The individual 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


must subordinate himself to the system. Nor did toleration 
—at first a modern political expedient—exist in the religious 
organisation of Utopia. A man who did not believe in the 
immortality of the soul, in a future life with its rewards 
and punishments, or held that the world was the plaything 
of chance, was a man of base mind unfit to hold office in 
the State, who was not allowed to air his views in public. 
He degraded man below the brute; for there was a sect 
that held that even brutes had immortal souls of an inferior 
kind. 

It has not been emphasised often enough by More’s 
biographers that “‘ he solemnly observed both in earnest 
and in jest to show no change of countenance in anything 
that he happened to speak.” Weare apt, I think, to suffer 
from our inability to keep pace with the brilliant flashes 
of More’s irony. We condemn, for instance, the Utopian 
use of slaves, but forget to notice that slavery in Utopia 
was a better lot than drudgery elsewhere, and that sometimes 
a poor labourer voluntarily exchanges drudgery in another 
country for slavery there. 

The form that this chapter has taken forbids that I should 
do more than give to his Utopia its place in More’s busy 
life. Indeed, I can pass on, leaving my readers in better 
hands than mine if they will consult Dr Barker’s article on 
the later developments of Plato’s political theory in the 
appendix to his work on Greek Political Thought, or Miss 
Hertzler’s compendious History of Utopian Thought. 

The New Year of 1517 that opened with the publication 
of Utopia was a year of interest. On May Day—the famous 
Evil May Day—the apprentices of London arose in a 
violent demonstration against the foreign artificers and 
artisans in the City, and in quelling the tumult tradition 
has it that More played a distinguished part as mediator. 
It is the stirring scene of More’s address to the mob that 
140 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


is attributed to Shakespeare in the play of Sir Thomas More. 
A little later in the summer his brother-in-law Rastell set 
out as captain-merchant of the Barbara on a voyage to the 
new-found lands. His crew mutinied and set him ashore 
at Waterford, and it is amusing to find that the trouble was 
caused in part by an agitator who had been one of the insti- 
gators of the May Day riots and had signed on as a hand on 
the Barbara to escape justice. On the eve of All Saints in 
the same year Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against 
indulgences on the door of the ducal palace church at 
Wittenberg. But it was not until 1520 that Luther’s 
breach with Rome became complete, and Pope Leo X 
issued his famous bull. 

Meanwhile More had been induced by the King to leave 
his City office, and had been absorbed in the service of the 
Court. His promotions were rapid, but it was at the cost 
of almost everything that he valued most. It was some 
recompense that it gave him the means to serve his friends 
and protégés, and advance their fortunes. But his four 
children were now at an interesting age. In 1520, when 
her father left England for the Field of-the-Cloth of Gold, 
Margaret More was fifteen and John was ten. The edu- 
cation of his children was now the thing nearest to his heart. 
Erasmus described his house as an academy, or rather a 
school or university of Christian teaching wherein all studied 
all the branches of a liberal education. A letter written to his 
tutor Gunnell in 1521, when More, just knighted and made 
Under-Treasurer of the Household, was abroad in the 
King’s service, sets out the educational aims by which he 
would have his school guided: above all, he would have his 
daughters carry their learning modestly. Nothing can be 
prettier than the letters he wrote to his children and their 
friends as he followed the Court. Most of them have been 
gathered by Dr Foster Watson in his book on Vives and the 


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Renaissance Education of Women. Particularly pretty is the 
following passage from one of his letters to Margaret : 


Thomas More sendeth hearty greeting to his dearest daughter 
Margaret. I will let pass to tell you, my sweetest daughter, how 
much your letter delighted me; you may imagine how exceedingly 
it pleased your father when you understand what affection the 
reading of it raised in a stranger.. It happened me this evening 
to sit with John [Voysey], Lord Bishop of Exeter, a learned man, 
and by all men’s judgment, a most sincere man. As we were 
talking together and I taking out of my pocket a paper which 
was to the purpose we were talking of, I pulled out by chance 
therewith your letter. The handwriting pleasing him, he took 
it from me and looked on it ; when he perceived it by the salutation 
to be a woman’s, he began more greedily to read it, novelty inviting 
him thereunto; but when he had read it and understood that it 
was your writing which he never could have believed if I had not 
seriously afirmed it; ‘‘such a letter ’—I will say no more—yet 
why should not I report that which he said unto me—“ So pure 
a style, so good Latin, so eloquent, so full of sweet affections ”— 
he was marvellously ravished with it. When I perceived that I 
brought forth also an oration of yours, which he reading, and also 
many of your verses, he was so moved with the matter so unlooked — 
for, that the very countenance and gesture of the man, free from 
all flattery and deceit, betrayed that his mind was more than his 
words could utter, although he uttered many to your great praise ; 
and forthwith he drew out of his pocket a portegue 1 which you 
shall receive enclosed herein. I could not possibly shun the 
taking of it, but he would needs send it unto you, as a sign of his 
dear affection towards you, although by all means I endeavoured 
to give it him again ; which was the cause I showed him more of 
your other sister’s works ; for I was afraid lest I should have been 
thought to have showed them of purpose because he should bestow 
the like courtesy upon them ; for it troubles me sore that I must 
needs take this of him; but he isso worthy a man, as I have said, 
that it is a happiness to please him thus. Write carefully unto him, 
and as eloquently as you are able, to give him thanks therefore. 
Farewell. From the court, this 11th of September, even almost 
at mid-night. 


1 Or portague, a gold coin worth £3 Ios. or more. 
142 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


Of all the villains in English history Henry VIII to me is 
the hardest to forgive, when one thinks of all the beautiful 
things he smashed. 

One matter that has perhaps been overlooked by More’s 
biographers is the intensity of his patriotism. To illus- 
trate my point we must go back a little. In the French 
war of the early years of Henry’s reign the largest vessel 
in the English Navy, the Regent, had gone down in flames 
grappled with the French Cordighera. ‘The French Queen’s 
secretary, Brixius, wrote some extravagant verses eulogising 
the part the French had taken in the disaster, and More 
had retorted in several epigrams which he published in 1518. 
Brixius replied by a scornful criticism of More’s Latin, and 
he in turn retorted in his Epistola ad Germanum Brixium in 
1520. Erasmus had to step in to stop the feud. It is this 
same spirit of jealous patriotism that marks his first en- 
counter with Luther. Henry VIII had responded to the 
appeal of Leo X by replying to Luther’s attack on the 
Papacy with his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. In this 
he opposes Luther’s view of indulgences, defends the 
supremacy of the Pope, and reasserts the doctrine of the 
sacraments of the Church. Luther seized the opportunity 
of engaging with a royal controversialist. He attacked 
the King in a scurrilous pamphlet full of personal abuse 
in Latin and German. ‘The King could not with dignity 
remain in the arena, and it was left to More under the 
pseudonym of William Ross to reply with insult for 
insult on the ground his adversary had adopted. If his 
flyting with Brixius seems to us a little provocative it is 
very hard to justify his Responsio ad Convitia Martini Lutheri 
on any grounds of good taste. We must simply see in 
it an element in More’s composition which is generally 
overlooked. I sometimes wonder what Erasmus had in 
mind when he described More’s hands as a little coarse— 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


subrustice. But More’s character rather gains than loses 
by seeing it whole. 

It was at this conjuncture that he addressed his defence 
of the teaching of Greek and the fair humanities to the 
conservative Trojans of Oxford, while at the same time he 
was writing for himself his devotional treatise on The Four 
Last Things. 

Wolsey took up the Lutheran challenge with great 
energy, fighting it through the machinery of the ecclesi- 
astical courts. Unfortunately he devoted quite as much 
energy to the raising of his great subsidy in 1524, and the 
City, already hostile to the clergy, their tithes, and their 
offerings, resisted in secret both his attack on Lutheranism 
and his demand for money. ‘The dissemination of heresy 
was chiefly fostered by the importation of printed matter 
from Germany and the Low Countries, and so strict a 
watch was kept on the London booksellers and printers 
that even Margaret Roper was caught in the net of the 
good Tunstall’s Vicar-General. ‘There were then, as now, 
many who thought Erasmus responsible for the origin 
of Lutheranism. Margaret Roper had translated his 
treatise on the Paternoster, and young Thomas Bertelet, 
soon to become the King’s printer, had printed her work 
without a licence. He was called to answer for his offence, 
but, as a second edition bearing a full-page cut of Wolsey’s 
arms appeared almost immediately, ample amends seem to 
have been made. The preface to this little book is one 
of the prettiest things in the story of the school of More. 
It is addressed by the young tutor Richard Herd to one of 
More’s nieces, and should be known to all who are inter- 
ested in the early history of the education of women. ‘They 
will find it in Dr Foster Watson’s little book on Vives, to 
which reference has already been made. 

The methods of the ecclesiastical courts, framed originally 


144 


SIR THOMAS MORE 


to meet the heresy of the Lollards in the days before printing, 
were now inadequate. The appearance of Tyndale’s New 
Testament in 1526 and the secret importation and distribu- 
tion of copies demonstrated the futility of the old machinery. 
Tunstall adopted a new method, perhaps on More’s sug- 
gestion—the method of instruction by controversy. He 
licensed More to read heretical books and reply to them. 
The subject-matter of More’s controversial works can have 
little interest for the general reader to-day, nor for that 
matter will he find them easily accessible, but to the student 
of literature they have all the interest that springs from the 
fact that the form he adopts reflects the methods of the 
writers he likes best—St Augustine, Lucian, Plato, and, 
we must add, the schoolmen, all in their ways masters of 
the art of discussion. For these reasons, though we may 
not be interested in its value as an important document for 
the Church historian, we shall find great interest in the 
Dialogue concerning Heresies. It is a Platonic dialogue in 
which the case for the opposition is stated with no less 
weight than that for orthodoxy. It is a masterpiece of its 
kind. It belongs to the year 1528, when More was Chan- 
cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His second essay, the 
Supplication of Souls, is equally refreshing, but one busi- 
ness begetteth another, and his controversies with Tyndale, 
Barnes, and Frith are of a different order. In them More 
makes the irretrievable mistake of answering his opponents 
in the scholastic manner, point by point as they make them. 
The form, therefore, is not the playful design in dialogue in 
which all his best work is cast, but the forthright pedestrian 
method of his antagonist. 

He had now succeeded Wolsey in the Chancellorship. 
The charge that he violently persecuted heretics to the 
death cannot be maintained. He fought with the pen, 
not with the brand and axe. He held the Great Seal for 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


less than three years. The King whom he was serving was 
himself violating in act and deed the principles for which 
More was striving. Less than two years after his resigna- 
tion he was in the Tower, where he was to remain for fifteen 
months. It is to the piety of his daughter Margaret in the 
first instance that we owe the preservation of the writings 
and letters that belong to this period. Their courage, 
conviction, and simplicity are as impressive as their freshness 
and wit. He had the most serene and real faith in the world 
to come, as a place of great gladness. ‘‘ Farewell, my dear 
child,” he wrote to Margaret on the day before he died, 
“and pray for me and I shall for you and all your friends, 
that we may merrily meet in heaven.”’ ‘The works he wrote 
during his imprisonment are not controversial. Indeed, one 
would gather from them that the storm was over. They 
are a great achievement. In Holbein’s group of the More 
family is shown a Boethius, one of the favourite books of 
the More household. More’s ‘comfort against tribu- 
lation,” written in prison, 1s his Consolations of Philosophy. 
It is a cheerful book, cast once more in the form of a dia- 
logue, and not without the interest of playful anecdote and 
reminiscence. “‘ They that sow in tears shall,” to use 
More’s words, “‘ have in heaven a merry laughing harvest 
for ever.” 

Joseph Addison, writing in The Spectator during Lent 
on the theme of fortitude in the face of death, has this 
remarkable passage : 

More died upona point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by 
that side for which he suffered. ‘Chat innocent mirth which had 
been so conspicuous in his life did not forsake him to the last: he 
maintained the same cheerfulness of heart upon the scaffold which 
he used to shew at his table ; and upon laying his head on the block, 
gave instances of that good humour with which he had always enter- 


tained his friends in the most ordinary occurrences. His death was 
of a piece with his life; there was nothing in it new, forced, or 


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SIR THOMAS MORE 


affected. He did not look upon the severing his head from his body 
as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition 
of his mind ; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of im- 
mortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern 
improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could 
deject or terrify him. 

There is no great danger of imitation from this example ; men’s 
natural fears will be a difficult guard against it. I shall only observe 
that what was philosophy in this extraordinary man would be a 
frenzy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness 
of his temper as in the sanctity of his life and manners, 


It is strange after this noble passage to meet the French 
historian Franck’s reflection on the fact that More died with 
a jest on his lips: “‘ There is in death a sublime majesty 
which it is one’s duty to respect. . . . Gaiety at this great 
moment wounds us as a profanation.”” ‘This surely is to 
treat the manner of More’s death as a violation of the laws 
of classical tragedy; but perhaps Franck was not aware 
of the words of one of More’s biographers which I have 
already quoted, that ‘‘ this he solemnly observed both in 
earnest and in jest to show no change of countenance in 
anything that he happened to speak.” 

A. W. Reep 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A full and very scholarly bibliography by the late Mr Guthkelch will be 
found in the edition of More’s Utopia by G. Sampson, in “‘ Bohn’s Popular 
Library ” (G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.). ‘This edition contains the Latin text with 
Robinson’s translation as well as Roper’s Life of More. 

The later development of Utopian thought is the subject of an admirable 
article in the appendix of Dr Ernest Barker’s work on Plato and his Pre- 
decessors. Miss Hertzler’s History of Utopian Thought (Allen and Unwin) 
is a useful compendium. A modern rendering of Utopia by Mr G. C. 
Richards (Blackwell), with a useful introduction, should be noted. 

Much the best modern study of More’s life and writings is to be found 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


in Joseph Delcourt’s Essai sur la langue de Sir Thomas More (Paris, Didier, 
1914). The English works have not found a second editor since More’s 
nephew, William Rastell, edited them in Mary’s reign. An interesting 
Selection has recently been published by P. S. and H. M. Allen (Oxford 
University Press) and should become popular. It contains a rendering of 
Erasmus’ Life of More. 

Of the earlier lives those by Stapleton (in Tres Thoma) and Cresacre More 
are unfortunately not readily accessible. ‘The best of the modern biographies 
are those by Sir James Mackintosh, Father Bridgett (Te Life and Writings), 
W. H. Hutton, and Sir Sidney Lee (in D.N.B.). 

Dr Foster Watson has gathered much interesting material on the “ School 
of More” in his Vives and the Renaissance Education of Women (Oxford 
University Press), and the present writer has dealt with the influence of More’s 
circle in the history of early Tudor drama in The Beginnings of the Romantic 
and Secular Drama (Oxford University Press). 


148 


VI 
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
RASMUS produced in his day an incredible amount 


EL: literature, and an incredible number of books 
have been written about him. To read all with 
due attention is possible only for the student who gives 
his life to it. Although I have read most of Erasmus 
himself I have not read all, or nearly all, that even good 
writers have said about him. That is a serious disqualifi- 
cation. It is not the only nor perhaps the gravest one. 
I have had no special training in the methods of historical 
research as applied to the age of Erasmus: and yet except . 
in relation to his age he cannot be altogether understood. 
I have had to ask myself with what right I am to speak 
of him publicly at all. 

I have only this answer: I am (what Erasmus was) a 
classical scholar. So far as J am that, my mind has been 
fed on the same literature and ideals as his. That may 
be my only justification for speaking of him now, yet I am 
not afraid that an audience of historians will consider it 
a poor one. It is no bad preparation for reading an author 
to have lived in the same intellectual world with him. ‘To 
do that completely is of course impossible, impossible even 
among contemporaries. And Erasmus lived a long time 
ago, in a world very different from ours. Any modern 
student who found him easy to understand would only be 
deceiving himself. However, no modern student is in the 
least likely to find understanding easy. Erasmus puzzled 
his own generation, let alone ours. It is reasonable to 


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believe that in some ways the puzzle is clearer to us than to 
them, for, as the Greek proverb has it, “‘ Time that obscures 
many things brings many into the light.” Yet on the whole 
the shades about him must have multiplied and deepened. 
I cannot penetrate them; but I have my lantern. I am 
not tooapologetic about it, because I observe that concerning 
Erasmus historians themselves are sharply divided. Most, 
I think, are disposed to the unfavourable view, and even 
the friendlier among them cannot dismiss him without a 
grave admonition. That, if I may suggest the criticism, is 
because Erasmus played, or seemed to play, a weak part 
in the politics of his time; for I have noticed that historians 
are inclined to forgive anything in a politician sooner than 
weakness. Onthe other hand, to me it comes more natural 
to see Erasmus as the scholar; and, so judging, 1 find my 
opinion favourable. You will not blame me for thinking 
that my point of view is at least equally legitimate with that 
of the student of politics or theology. At any rate, it was 
the point of view taken by Erasmus himself. I am content 
to see him as he saw himself; and as Holbein saw him, with 
the keen and subtle face intent upon the words he is tracing 
in his fine Latin hand. 

He has been called a coward or little better. It is easy 
to see why; and if Erasmus had been mainly a man of 
action the charge might be made good. But he was not, 
and so the charge must be considered in another light. 
We must try to see what his purpose really was, and call 
him coward only if he failed, and basely failed, in that. 
At best, the accusation of cowardice is not so much an 
explanation as the refusal of one. Erasmus was an imagi- 
native man, and a genius at that. Really, to call him just 
a coward is not subtle enough! 1 waive the argument that 
the explanation does not fit all the facts, that on occasion 
Erasmus showed a good deal of courage. But is our case 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


not proved ? say his accusers. Is it not proved out of his 
own mouth? Did he not confess that, for his part, he did 
not aspire to the martyr’s crown and that, if he were tempted 
like Peter, he would like Peter fall? I find this point so 
often made by critics that I fear there must be something 
wrong with my moral sense. | cannot help thinking that, 
if Erasmus really felt like that, it was courageous of him 
to say so. Of course, all who are ready to face the stake 
for their convictions and to condemn Peter for his weak- 
ness are entitled to cast the first stone. 

The charge itself, however, is not so easily disposed of. 
Take, what has always interested historians so much, the 
attitude of Erasmus to Luther. Here, say many of them, 
was a situation in which a man with sincere convictions 
was bound to take sides; and Erasmus hedged. It could 
only have been from self-interest or cowardice, or possibly 
from a mixture of both. That is the suggestion, and, on 
the face of it, it seems true. I am disposed to think myself 
that there is some truth in it. The important issue is, 
How much? The charge of self-interest is not usually 
pressed, since in fact the hesitations of Erasmus merely 
got him into disfavour with both parties. But the other 
indictment remains, and demands a serious and reasoned 
answer. ‘This answer I proceed to develop. But first 
you will permit me this general observation. ‘The charge 
of cowardice is based on the assumption that in the Lutheran 
- Quarrel an honest man was bound to take the one side or 
the other. Now logically, of course, that is a false assump- 
tion; but I am not going to use the logical argument. 
Erasmus might be intellectually convinced (as in fact he 
was) that neither Luther nor his opponents were in the 
right, and yet might feel it his duty to fight for the side he 
thought least in the wrong. He did not so regard his 
duty. He had another conception of it altogether. What 


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was that? A very natural one for a scholar, if I am right, 
and especially for Erasmus. His position in Europe was like 
that of noother man. He was the representative scholar of 
his age, listened to as no scholar has ever been before or 
since. And in return Erasmus was true to scholarship ; 
his bitterest enemy has not denied that. ‘The duty of the 
scholar is to expound the true meaning, as he sees it, of the 
written word. Erasmusdidthat. Ifthe meaning he found 
was neither that of Luther nor of the schoolmen, whose fault 
was it? People want him to take sides. But how can the 
scholar take sides ? 

For my own part I cannot see any clear answer to that 
question. No man, it is true, can be merely a scholar 
without ceasing to be something of a man ; but neither can 
one be merely a statesman or a soldier without incurring 
the same penalty. There may be certain rare occasions 
(I think there are) when an attitude of impartiality does 
more harm than good. But was the Reformation one of 
these occasions? Was it really so important that Luther 
should destroy his enemies or his enemies him? Are we 
not really glad that neither the one thing happened nor 
the other? It is surely time for the historical temper to 
recover a little from the fierce passions of the great contro- 
versy and do justice to Erasmus, because, with regard to that 
controversy, it is becoming clearer every day that Erasmus 
was in the main right. His criticism of the Lutheran position, 
though sharp, is not, on its intellectual merits, unfair ; and 
is in fact perhaps unanswerable. 

Nevertheless, it is not always the man who is right in a 
great question who is most admirable. ‘There is such a 
thing as a noble error, and one would rather be Don Quixote 
than the Barber. If the spirit of Erasmus had been more 
exalted it might not have seen so clearly. For never was 
anyone less of what is usually meant by a hero. Out of 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


a hundred illuminating passages the following brief ex- 
tract from a letter to Marcus Laurinus! is indescribably 
typical : 


If anyone cannot love Erasmus for the weak Christian he is, 
let him feel towards him in any way he pleases : I cannot be other 
than I am. If Christ has imparted to any greater gifts of the 
Spirit and he has confidence in himself, let him use them to the 
glory of Christ. Meanwhile it is more to my mind to follow a 
humbler, if only it be a safer, course. I cannot help execrating 
strife, I cannot help loving peace and concord. I see in what 
darkness even human affairs are involved, I see how much more 
easily rebellion is excited than appeased ; and I have learned how 
many are the devices of Satan. Nor may I trust my own spirit 
through all issues ; so far am I from being able to pronounce with 
confidence on the spirit of another man. My desire would be for 
all to strive together to this end, that through the victory of Christ 
an evangelical union of hearts may be formed among all men, that 
peace may be preserved and methods of truth and reason be em- 
ployed to secure the dignity of the priesthood on one hand and on 
the other the liberties of the people, who it was the will of Our 
Lord Jesus should be free. “Those who march on this goal will 
find Erasmus heart and soul upon their side. But if any man 
prefers to create confusion, I at least will go neither with him nor 
before him. ‘They plead the workings of the Spirit.. Well, then, 
let those on whom the Spirit of the Lord has breathed dance among 
the prophets with my best wishes! On myself the Spirit has not 
yet seized ; when it has, perhaps I also shall be called a Saul among 
the prophets. 


In a quarrel where the feelings of people are deeply 
engaged the ironical man is sure to be unpopular and certain 
to be misunderstood. It is very dificult when you have 
some cause desperately at heart to believe in the sincerity 
of an opponent who meets you with irony. If you dislike 
him you will call him a humbug; and if you like him you 
will say it is only his fun. Erasmus has encountered both 
these opinions of him. I do not know whether he would 


1 Opus Epistolarum, ed. P. S. and H. M. Allen, vol. v, 1542, p. 227. 


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have been more amused or exasperated if he could have 
foreseen that he would be included with Luther in a series 
of volumes entitled ‘‘ Heroes of the Reformation”’; but, since 
he had so fine a sense of irony, I think he would have been 
more amused. Let us be on our guard then with this man, 
and not take him too literally at his word even when he says 
he is no hero. He had a cause of his own, which was not 
the cause of the dogmatists and the politicians, the cause 
of good literature and sound scholarship—what he calls 
bone litere. ‘Yo that he gave infinite devotion. Call him 
what you like, in the world of letters Erasmus is a hero. 

So much depends on the point of view. To get that 
right is peculiarly difficult in the case of Erasmus because 
of the man’s complexity of nature. Undoubtedly in many 
ways he produces a bad impression. The Letters give us 
the self-portrait of one ceaselessly concerned with the effect 
of things on himself and his personal fortunes. Scholar- 
ship and Erasmus are one in his mind. No doubt it is in 
a sense just this egotism that gives the Lesters their vitality 
and puts them by the side of the Lezters of Cicero. But, 
while one is charmed, one is not always edified. On one 
point perhaps a good deal of moral indignation has been 
largely wasted. The begging letters, which at one period 
in the career of Erasmus are frequent, and are always 
possible from him, are nauseating enough. Yet he was no 
worse in this respect than other Renaissance scholars, and 
rather better than most. ‘That is a poor excuse, but he had 
a much better one. Even a scholar cannot live on nothing, 
and the contemporaries of Erasmus were apparently quite 
happy to see Erasmus work for nothing. ‘The scandal 
was not so much that he begged as that he was forced to 
beg. The egotism of the man expresses itself in some- 
thing quite different from this and something far more dis- 
turbing. If only he could have forgotten himself a little 


154 


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


more! A man who cannot do this will inevitably seem on 
occasion a time-server, a lover of compromise, a coward. 
So these suspicions have fallen on Erasmus not unjustly. 
But that does not prove them right. A timid man need 
not be a coward, and a compromise is not necessarily in- 
sincere. What I am disposed to challenge is the assump- 
tion that, when the great test came, Erasmus lied to his 
own soul and spun about it a cocoon of fine theories, which 
he did not believe himself, and which in fact have no 
meaning. 

What then did Erasmus mean, and what is this doctrine 
of his? It is this: that men should observe moderation. 
And as a sort of corollary he adds that they should study the 
ancient classics. ‘That is the whole gospel of Erasmus, 
and I am driven to suppose that almost everybody regards 
it as one of the feeblest ever produced by man. As if one 
could steer one’s ship through the tempest of the Reforma- 
tion by disregarding the winds and reading Cicero! Some- 
thing like that is what people think of Erasmus. But it ts 
a parody of what he meant, and comes from a misconcep- 
tion. ‘The quality which he had in mind was what the 
Greeks called Sophrosyne; and because Sophrosyne is the 
informing spirit of ancient literature he recommended its 
study there with a view not merely to imitating it in one’s 
style, but also to following it in one’s conduct and char- 
acter. The emotion, indeed, with which Erasmus suffuses 
the doctrine is Christian; but the doctrine itself is Greek. 
Only, what is applauded in the ancients is called Lao- 
diceanism in Erasmus. I can see the point of those who 
maintain that the times in which he lived were no times for 
that policy of moderation, of compromise and arbitration, 
which he never ceased to recommend; that the world’s 
ills required a sharper surgery. But I cannot see for myself 
that the age of Erasmus had less need of Sophrosyne than 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


another. I should have thought rather that it had more. 
But, as it seems to me, people would not listen to the scholar, 
not because his remedy was superficial, but because it went 
too deep. It called for a change of spirit on both sides, 
and both sides naturally found the demand insulting and 
intolerable. 

Obviously I cannot here discuss the full meaning of 
Sophrosyne. But I may perhaps as a student of Greek be 
allowed to say, a little dogmatically and not quite accurately, 
but with approximate accuracy, that what it means 1s not 
so much moderation as a passion for moderation. That 
is apt to strike the modern man as a strange or even im- 
possible emotion. Nevertheless, it was just this emotion 
which created our European civilisation. And whenever 
civilisation breaks down into barbarism it is only by a 
passion for moderation that it can be rescued and restored. 
That, at least, was the Greek view, the very definition of 
the barbarian being for the Greeks the man who goes to 
extremes. They thought him a weakling, and they proved 
they were right by beating and then making a man of him. 
The whole of ancient morality is based on the conviction that 
moderation is strength—but moderation at white heat. 

Now this is exactly what we find in Erasmus. His 
love of peace, his hatred of faction and extremism, burns 
everywhere in his writings. Of course, this emotion may 
spring from mere weakness of character; I am not con- 
cerned to deny that in the case of Erasmus. I do not feel 
qualified either to deny or admit it. But these considera- 
tions have nothing to do with the sincerity of the emotion 
itself. It is obviously unfair to say that Erasmus was for 
concord between the factions because that suited his own 
interests. He was always the man for peace, and used to 
plead its cause long before his own future was at stake. 
It is more plausible to say that he identified himself with 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


scholarship and saw that the strife of parties would be fatal 
to his profession. Well, and if he did, is that so ignoble 
a fear? He was always ready to acknowledge that there 
was something more important than scholarship—namely, 
religion. But he could not see that the cause of true 
religion was going to be served by the destruction of 
scholarship. Rather the contrary. 

The character of Erasmus is so fascinating that I find 
it as difficult as other people to drop the subject. I shall 
content myself with one contribution to the discussion, 
and even in this I am not wholly original. Not enough 
has been made of the physical constitution of Erasmus as 
a key to much in his character. I realise that this is a very 
dangerous line of explanation, but if it is carefully used it 
will explain something. ‘There is, for instance, in Erasmus 
a great deal of a quality which is perhaps best described 
as petulance. Although at heart a kindly and even affec- 
tionate man, he was constantly saying biting things, which 
he afterward regretted and withdrew. No doubt if you 
have as fine a gift of ridicule as Erasmus possessed you will 
find it very hard not to use it on occasion. ‘That is only 
human nature. ‘Thus, after Luther had made one of those 
unsparing attacks of his, Erasmus replied that he would 
wish Luther a better disposition, if Luther were not so 
well satisfied with the one he had. You could hardly 
expect a literary man to suppress a retort like that, once 
he had thought of it. But Erasmus had not always this ex- 
cuse. And here, I think, is where the physical explanation 
comes in. 

Erasmus enjoyed or suffered an extreme refinement of 
the senses. We must, of course, remember his century. 
It was a time when life was in some ways more splendid, 
but was in most respects far coarser and more inconvenient 
than it is now. ‘The distress of Erasmus at certain things 


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he describes will hardly strike the modern reader as ex- 
cessive or even as anything but entirely justified. But in 
the early sixteenth century, when nerves were strong and 
sanitation weak, Erasmus must have appeared painfully 
fastidious. Everybody remembers his account of German 
inns, because everybody has read T’he Cloister and the Hearth. 
But in that account there is, of course, an element of 
humorous exaggeration. If it stood alone it would scarcely 
be evidence in the matter. But it does not; the evidence 
is almost everywhere in his writings, especially, as one 
would expect, in the Lesters. Carlyle himself was not more 
acutely aware of every kind of discomfort or more voluble 
in his lamentations. Let Erasmus be given inferior wine, 
or let him but smell fish cooking, or be put in a room with 
a stove and the windows shut, and the world turns dark 
to him. Nevertheless, he is far from being a morose man. 
The very sensitiveness which made disagreeable things 
hurt him so, intensified his perception of what was agree- 
able. Obviously a nervous organisation of this kind, 
though eminently favourable to the artist, will constantly 
betray him into sallies of the spirit, which may fly in the 
face of any doctrine of “ moderation.’ So the practice of 
Erasmus does not always accord with his preaching. An 
old-fashioned psychology would have said that there was 
in him a conflict between the emotions and the will. Well, 
that happens to most of us. 

It is now more than time to say something about the 
writings of Erasmus. ‘They, in fact, are the evidence I 
would offer in support of the argument that all his life he 
kept applying to questions of contemporary interest the 
lessons he found in classical literature. I have not the 
least doubt that any classical scholar who reads him fairly 
through will accept that view. The Bible, of course, in 
its original Hebrew and Greek counts as a classic. It is 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


no doubt the chief influence on Erasmus, but it is not the. 
only one, and it is not the characteristic one. That is the 
influence of what an older generation would have called the 
pagan moralists. ‘This influence Erasmus combines with 
Christianity, as it may very well be combined; and it is 
this combination which is his special contribution to his 
age. Historians have generally regarded him as a man 
before his time, a preparer of the Reformation and the 
modern world. What has not been sufficiently recognised 
is that he produced this effect by the application not of new, 
but of old, ideas. It is only another illustration of the 
undying power of the Greek spirit to renew, as it were, 
the minds of men. The Greek spirit, tending to judge 
everything by its reasonableness, is a permanent solvent of 
institutions. It had been absorbed to an extraordinary 
degree by Erasmus. He is far more truly Greek than is, 
for instance, Winckelmann, whom the esthetically minded 
have tended to regard as a kind of reincarnation of an 
ancient Greek. And that perhaps is why Erasmus finds 
it so hard to understand religious mysticism unless it is 
expressed in terms of human reason, and why he combines 
this incapacity with a passionate interest in ethics. Nothing 
could be more Greek. 

No doubt it is difficult for the modern world to believe 
that mere scholarship of this kind could produce the effect 
which Erasmus undoubtedly produced. But there are 
certain things which in this connexion the modern world 
ought toremember. One is the character of his knowledge. 
We make a distinction between literature and scholarship ; 
Erasmus made none. In his eyes the one implied the other. 
It followed, of course, that he wrote in Latin. That was in 
any case inevitable if he was to reach the ear of educated 
Europe. It is in many ways a pity, for his literary skill, 
which makes almost a living speech of Latin, would have 


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accomplished wonders in Dutch or German. But a regret 
of that kind is merely wasted and is a little ungrateful 
besides. Let us be thankful for a scholar who can write 
in any language. Erasmus at least could do that, and 
therein lay the chief source of his power. But we have also 
to remember in what estimation a scholar of his days was 
held. The first flush of that revival of classical studies 
which is the Renaissance in its narrower sense was over, 
but the light was still spreading. To that light all active 
minds were turning. The victory of the new scholarship 
was complete; the old scholasticism was fighting a rear- 
guard action, deserted by the Papacy itself. The verna- 
culars, which in the Middle Ages had been good enough 
for Dante and Chaucer, and were shortly to prove them- 
selves good enough for Luther and Rabelais and Cervantes, 
suffered a temporary but almost complete eclipse. Writing 
in classical Latin became the mode. It became too much 
the mode. ‘There were people who said that you must not 
write a phrase or a word which could not be found in 
Cicero. Erasmus writes amusingly against such people, 
and he could afford to do so, because he quickly became 
the master of all who were writing in Latin. His virtuosity 
in the fashionable idiom is prodigious. He was, of course, 
a great deal more than a virtuoso; he was without quali- 
fication a great writer, rather perhaps in spite of his Latin 
than because of it. ‘The point I am making here is that, 
just at the time when he was writing, his facility in Latin 
was a most powerful factor in creating and extending his 
influence. 

But if Erasmus had found no more to say than other 
scholars of his age he would have charmed it, but never 
moved it as he did. He had, however, a great deal to say. 
While others had been content to write elegant Latin as 
a mere literary exercise Erasmus used his Latin to dissolve 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


a whole system of thought. He did not do this alto- 
gether deliberately; he was partly obeying instinct and the 
“classical spirit’ he had acquired in his reading. And 
naturally he did not perceive his mission at once. He said, 
though long after its publication, that his first considerable 
book, the ddages, was hastily put together to bring him 
a little money in a financial crisis; in other words, it was a 
potboiler. No doubt it was. ‘The book consisted of a 
collection, steadily added to as edition followed edition, 
of memorable or pointed sayings, apophthegms, from 
ancient authors, with a running commentary by the editor. 
Here, as in all his writing, Erasmus showed his flair for 
a subject. The Adages exactly hit the taste of the age. 
Every one loved a classical quotation, and here was a whole 
forest of them. We shall probably always underestimate 
the influence of the 4dages on European literature, because 
we shall never realise how familiar they were to all educated 
men. We may gain some idea of this from the Essais of 
Montaigne and be set wondering thereby how much the 
Adages may have meant to less original people. The book 
may be said to have done its work by now. It never was 
much more than a brilliant compilation. It would hardly 
claim the attention of the ordinary reader at all if it were 
_ not for its historical importance and, secondly, for its moral 
tone, a tone characteristic of Erasmus and destined to 
produce great effects. 

This note is more clearly heard in a little book which 
followed the first publication of the 4dages. He called it 
Enchiridion Militis Christiani, playing on the double signi- 
fication of éyyepidiov, which means both a short sword 
and a handbook, It was written at the request of a lady 
unhappily married to a military man, who used to beat 
her a good deal, and was certain to beat her a great deal 
more if he were to discover that the book, intended for 

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his reformation, had been written at his wife’s suggestion. 
It was a delicate task, but Erasmus performed it, with what 
effect on the military husband we do not know, but certainly 
with a great effect on the public. It cannot fall within 
the scope of this short chapter to analyse the successive 
works of Erasmus. Nor, in fact, would any analysis give 
a true idea of the Exchiridion;, for it is a series of moral 
commonplaces treated in a manner which is not common- 
place. You might as well try to analyse Horace. “ You 
never think of changing your way of life, and yet you pray 
God to let you live.” ‘“ The way to worship the Saints is 
to imitate their virtues.” When a man can put things 
like that, he will always find a response. The effect was 
not in the least weakened—it was doubled—by the ethical 
fervour of the Enchiridion. Questions of morals are so far 
from being uninteresting to readers that there is almost 
nothing else that does interest them, provided, of course, 
that the treatment is interesting. Erasmus saw to that. 

This interest in morals is highly characteristic of the 
man. Itis what sets him apart from the run of Renaissance 
scholars, who for the most part were interested only in 
their scholarship. In that sphere, in the sphere of exact 
scholarship, some of them excelled Erasmus, and could 
detect solecisms in his style, although they could not equal 
or approach it. But Erasmus brought his scholarship 
to the business and bosoms of men. ‘Thus in the year 
following the Exchiridion he wrote an Oration for the Duke 
of Burgundy, which is a plea for peace. Erasmus was not 
in the complete sense a pacifist, for he believed that some 
things would justify a war. But he thought that war was 
a measureless calamity in every case, and in almost every 
case a crime. In the Oration, and in the later and finer 
Complaint of Peace, he developed his doctrine. It was- 
nothing new. ‘The evils of war had been a favourite topic 
162 


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


of ancient eloquence, and in these pieces as in all his writing 
one seems to hear the very voice of classical antiquity. 
There is a true and, to my mind, a profound originality in 
seeing that the spirit of the past was still alive and shaping 
the present. One is apt to regard the man who wishes to 
apply the lessons of the past to the present as a doctrinaire, 
and so he is if he applies the wrong lessons. But a resur- 
rection of the past, as history has frequently shown, can 
in certain conditions prove the most fruitful of revolutions. 
The Renaissance itself shows that in literature. In philo- 
sophy, in ethics, even in religion, no one who understands the 
facts supposes that the Greek influence is even yet worked 
out. In this field Erasmus was the great pioneer. It took 
more courage than some people think. This condemnation 
of war, for instance, shows that. For it was not merely 
academic, not merely the complaint of the scholar or the 
thinker that his occupation is made impossible by violence, 
not merely the complaint of a follower of the Prince of 
Peace. It is presented with a mingling of reason and emo- 
tion which makes it something altogether different from a 
literary exercise or a simple cry of horror. When one re- 
calls how much in the time of Erasmus war was regarded 
as an indispensable instrument of policy, as an evil perhaps, 
but a necessary and often a highly profitable evil, his 
reasoned protest against it will not seem a small matter. 
Every word of it was true, every word of it was needed, and 
every word of it was an act of courage. 

It was not as if the Complaint of Peace had been the work 
of an unknown man. By the time of its publication 
Erasmus was the most celebrated writer in Europe. He 
had advanced to this position in a steady progress. ‘The 
greatest single step had perhaps been made with the 
Encomium Moria (Praise of Folly) in 1509. The Encomium 
was written in interesting circumstances at the house 

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of Sir Thomas More, whose name suggested the sub- 
ject, and to whom the little book is dedicated. It had 
a quite extraordinary success. ‘The theme is, briefly, that 
it is only folly that makes life tolerable. It is Folly 
herself who argues this, but there is just enough in the 
argument to give a bitter-sweet quality to one’s amusement. 
We have, in fact, in the Excomium the most sustained 
example of the irony of Erasmus. It is not a very delicate 
irony like that of Plato, nor a savage irony like that of 
Swift. But its comparative obviousness and good humour 
rather helped than hindered its success with the public. 
The Encomium is, I think, the book in which Erasmus 
first completely found himself. For irony was native to 
his mind. It was not, as some believed, a trick caught 
from Lucian. Irony cannot be learnt. It springs from 
the contact of a certain kind of intelligence with what is 
inexplicable to it in human life, an intelligence which 
naturally affects the reasonable and dreads above all else 
to be swept away by emotion. ‘The Greek mind is like 
this, and for that reason it is profoundly ironical, far more 
than is generally recognised. Erasmus had a mind of this 
temper, and so irony came as naturally to him as to Plato 
or Lucian. 

How would such a mind regard the Bible? That 
was an interesting question, and the answer to it was 
interesting. Erasmus edited the New Testament, with a 
Latin translation. It does not in these days seem a very 
startling thing to do, but people thought differently in 
1517. The Vulgate was sacrosanct, and here was not 
only an attempt to get behind it to its original Greek, but 
an attempt to correct it as a translation. The new version 
did in fact dissent from the Vulgate in some important 
points, and the new text might be said to inaugurate the 
age of critical scholarship in its application to the New 
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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


Testament. But let it be said at once that, judged by 
modern standards, the critical value of the edition was 
almost negligible. The problem was far more elaborate 
than Erasmus dreamed. All the same, it was a great 
work he accomplished. He saw broadly what was to be 
done, and others came after him and did it. And that is 
not all. ‘There were some things he did which the others 
could not do, which perhaps no other scholar has ever 
done so well. Let me explain, as briefly as I can, what 
these things were. 

The modern scholar tends to be a specialist. If, for 
instance, he is capable of producing a critical text of the 
New Testament he is probably not capable of producing 
anything else. The task absorbs all his energies. That 
may be a pity or it may not. But if we are to have the best 
texts that are possible—and surelythose are what we want— 
there is no alternative open to us. We need the specialist. 
And clearly it is right that at least some scholars should 
be willing to devote themselves entirely to one division or 
subdivision of the field of scholarship. Erasmus, however, 
was not a scholar of that type. His fabulous industry, 
his acute and sensible mind, his feeling for style, enabled 
him to do work in textual criticism which, measured by 
the standards of the time, was more than competent. 
But his strength was not here; it lay in what, for lack 
of a better word, we may call interpretation. What the 
original means—that was the great question for Erasmus. 
And here his astonishing literary faculty came to his aid. 
He could explain lucidly and even entertainingly what he 
took to be the meaning of his author, however difficult. 
There are some who appear to think that literary skill 1s 
an illegitimate advantage which some scholars enjoy over 
others. ‘That, of course, is nonsense. A certain amount 
of literary skill is necessary for the interpretation of great 

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literature, because in a matter of such delicacy to miss by 
an inch is as bad as missing by a mile. 

Erasmus, then, could not be content with the bare text 
of his New Peene. He added, as we have seen, a 
translation, and this he further illuminated by a com- 
mentary. ‘The modern critical scholar is scandalised by 
the free and easy expansiveness of Erasmus, but he can 
also observe that it achieved its purpose and even admit 
that this purpose was more immediately important than 
his own. Every student of the Bible knows how much 
explanation it requires for the uncritical reader. What 
Erasmus did was to weave together translation and explana- 
tion in these Paraphrases of his. ‘The result was that many 
a reader felt for the first time that he really understood 
his Testament. ‘This, as much as the extreme interest 
of having the Greek itself, was the reason why the edi- 
tion of Erasmus made history. He was not perhaps the 
first Higher Critic—a somewhat silly term in any case. 
Laurentius Valla has a prior claim., But Erasmus brought 
scholarship from the study into the market-place. He 
found men agitated to the point of frenzy in defence of 
their various dogmas and theologies. He said in effect, 
‘ Before we finally adopt this doctrine or the other, let us 
see what the Bible actually says.” Naturally no party liked 
this. It is hard to find that one has built a structure of 
theory on a false or misunderstood reading. So the frenzy 
rather increased than abated. But you will observe that 
in this work of his upon the Bible, as in all he did and said, 
it was the scholar that was acting and speaking, and only 
incidentally the theologian and the politician. 

The greatest purely literary success of Erasmus was 
achieved by the Co//loquies. Characteristically, his object in 
writing the work was practical. It is accurately described 
in the full title of the first authorised edition: Formulas of 
166 


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


Familiar Conversations . . . useful not only for Polishing a boy's 
Speech but also for Ordering of his Life. tis enough to make 
the heart of the boldest boy sink. Yet in fact for anyone 
who can read quite simple Latin the Colloguies is a delight- 
ful book. It is, of course, more than that. We must, I 
suppose, reckon it one of the most famous books of the 
modern world, even if we no longer read it. It has only 
to be read to be admired. So far as Erasmus had a model 
it was Lucian. The Colloguies are mainly Lucianic in 
form, and partly Lucianic in spirit. Yet there is a funda- 
mental difference. Lucian—and in this opinion I fear I 
may come into conflict with my fellow Grecians—Lucian 
is not a great writer. Iam unwilling to admit that I take 
less pleasure in him than do other people; and if to be 
readable were everything in a writer, there is hardly any we 
could put before Lucian. But there is no depth or passion 
in him, and so I cannot agree with those critics who would 
put him in the same fiery sphere as Swift and Voltaire. It 
may be asked, What of Lucian’s irony? I answer, a trick 
of style. ‘True irony sounds a deeper note. 

This note one does hear in Erasmus. Let me, for 
the sake of illustration, take a passage—not one of his 
famous passages—from the “ colloquy’ between Charon 
and Alastor. I give it in the translation of Sir Roger 
L’Estrange (1699), than which nothing could be more 
vivid. ‘The conversation between the two devils has for its 
subject ‘‘ Hell Broke Loose”’; and it proceeds in this manner: 

Alastor. But what says Fame upon the whole matter ? 

Charon. She speaks of Three Great Potentates, that are mortally 
bent upon the ruin of one another, insomuch that they have pos- 
sessed every part of Christendom with this fury of Rage and 4m- 
bition. ‘These Three are sufficient to engage all the lesser Princes 
and States in their quarrel ; and so we/fu/, that they’ll rather perish 
than yield. “he Dane, the Pole, the Scot, nay, and the Turk 
Himself, are dipt in the broil and the design. ‘The contagion is 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


got into Spain, Britany [2.e., Britain], Italy and France: nay, 
besides these feuds of hostility and arms, there’s a worse matter 
yet behind : that is to say, there is a malignity that takes its rise 
from a diversity of opznions, which has debauched men’s minds and 
manners to so unnatural and insociable a degree, that it has left 
neither faith nor friendship in the world. It has broken all con- 
fidence betwixt brother and brother, husband and wife; and it is 
to be hoped that this distraction will one day produce a glorious 
Confusion, to the very desolation of mankind. For these con- 
troversies of the tongue and of the pen will come at last to be 
tried by the sword’s point. 

Alastor. And Fame has said no more in all this than what these 
very ears and eyes have heard and seen. For I have been a con- 
stant companion and assistant to these Furies, and can speak upon 
knowledge, that they have approved themselves worthy of their 
name and office. 

Charon. Right, but men’s minds are variable ; and what if some 
Devil should start up now to negotiate a peace? “There goes a 
rumour, I can assure ye, of a certain scribling fellow (one Erasmus 
they say) that has entered upon that province. 

Alastor. Ay, ay: but he talks to the deaf. ‘There’s nobody 
heeds him nowadays. He writ a kind of a Hue and Cry after Peace, 
that he fancied to be either fed or banished; and after that an 
Epitaph upon Peace Defunct, and all to no purpose. But then we 
have those on the other hand that advance our cause as heartily as 
the very Furzes themselves. 

Charon. And what are they, I prithee ? 

Alastor. You may observe up and down in the courts of Princes 
certain Animals; some of them tricked up with feathers, others in 
white, russet, ash-coloured frocks, gowns, habits; or call ’em what 
you will. [Really Sir Roger is rather wild in his translation here, 
but substantially right, as always.] “These are the instruments, 
you must know, that are still irritating Kzmgs to the thirst of War 
and Blood under the splendid notion of Empire and Glory: and 
with the same art and industry they inflame the spirits of the 
Nobility likewise and of the Common People. ‘Their sermons are 
only harangues in honour of the outrages of Fire and Sword under 
the character of a just, a religious, or a holy war. And which is yet 
more wonderful, they make it to be Goa’s Cause on both sides. 
God fights for us, is the cry of the French pulpits; and what have 


168 


DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 


they to fear that have the Lord of Hosts for their Protector ?— 
Acquit yourselves like men, say the English, and the Spaniard, and 
the victory ts certain; for this is God’s cause, not Cesar’s. As for 
those that fall in the battle, their souls mount as directly to Heaven, 
as if they had wings to carry ’em thither, arms and all. 

Charon. But do their disciples believe all this ? 

Alastor. You cannot imagine the power of a well dissembled 
Religion, where there’s youth, ignorance, ambition, and a natural 
animosity to work upon. Tis an easy matter to impose, where 
there is a previous propension to be decerved ! 


This is the true irony, something different from the 
undergraduate wit of Lucian. Like all great writing it 
does not come merely from the intellect. But to deal 
adequately with the Co//oguies is naturally impossible in a 
brief chapter; scarcely in a volume could one trace out 
and study its character and its influence. The humour 
of the book, its realism, its novelistic quality, make it 
prophetic of so much that was to follow. The study of 
this is for the historian of literature, but it is not hard for 
anyone to form some conception of the power and vitality, 
the germinating virtue, of this old manual for schoolboys. 

Afterward Erasmus became more deeply involved in the 
Lutheran controversy. That in a sense was the tragedy 
of his life, and all I can say of it I have already said. I 
have tried to show that whatever he wrote was written 
from the point of view and in the temper of the Greek 
moralists, as he understood them. The lesson he never 
wearied of preaching, the lesson of moderation, of avoiding 
extremes, is nothing else than that doctrine of Sophrosyne 
which, as I put it, and I think it was not too much to say, 
is the informing spirit of all the best literature of ancient 
Greece and Rome. It did not seem to him incompatible 
with the Christian religion. On the contrary, it seemed 
to him nearer to the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth than the 
ardour of the Crusader. ‘That raises a point which will 

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perhaps never be settled, but for that very reason the world 
will never be able to forget Erasmus. His own life indeed 
ended upon the whole in failure, for the nations were too 
angry with each other to listen to him. Nineteen hundred 
years before him a greater writer than Erasmus said of 
his own troubled times: “‘ Words no longer bore the same 
relation to things, but had their meaning wrested to suit 
the speaker’s mind. Inconsiderate daring was the courage 
that makes a good comrade, prudent delay a fine name 
for cowardice, cool reflection the caitiff’s excuse, to know 
everything was to do nothing. Frenzied activity was the 
true part of a man, to think out a safe plan of attack was 
a specious excuse for shirking. ‘The extreme man was 
always trusted, his opponent suspect.” 4 
That is what happened to Erasmus. 


J. A. K. Tuomson 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The bibliography of Erasmus is naturally too large a matter to be dealt with 
in a note. A long list of books and studies on the subject is appended to 
Preserved Smith’s Lrasmus (1923), and to this the student may be referred. 
The foundation of all exact study must be the great edition of the Letters by 
Dr P. S. Allen (with Mrs Allen), Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 
begun in 1906 and still incomplete. It may be supplemented from the 
Epistles of Erasmus by F. M. Nichols. Reprints of the more famous writings 
of Erasmus are, of course, very numerous and generally accessible. 

Of books concerning Erasmus there is no end. ‘The English reader may 
be expected to have read Froude’s lectures, The Life and Letters of Erasmus 
(1894). But he should not omit the Excyclopedia Britannica article, which 
was written by Mark Pattison and revised by Dr Allen. ‘Two American 
books may be recommended: Emerton’s Erasmus (1900), well written but 
somewhat biased, and the book by Preserved Smith, very full and up to date, 
but suffering a little from the writer’s incomplete sympathy or familiarity with 
Latin scholarship. 


1 Thucydides, iii, 82. 
170 


Vil 
MARTIN LUTHER 


of what may be failure. Soon after I had begun to 

study the writings of Martin Luther certain conclu- 
sions began to force themselves upon me. But I note 
with some misgiving that learned students of sixteenth- 
century thought have come to conclusions startlingly 
different. I find that Luther is spoken of as a great polliti- 
cal thinker: whereas I do not myself find that he was, 
in any strict sense, a political thinker at all. He has been 
called a protagonist of something vaguely referred to as 
“the theory of the Divine Right of Kings.” He has 
even been described as a forerunner of the “ religion of 
the State.” I have conscientiously tried to find some sort 
‘of justification for these high-sounding terms, and I must 
confess that I have not succeeded. It seems to me that 
the character of Luther’s political conceptions has often 
been gravely misunderstood and that his influence upon 
political thought has been both misrepresented and grossly 
exaggerated. With whatever misgivings, I can but try to 
present the facts as I see them. 

I must begin with a few general assertions concerning 
Luther himself. Obviously the best evidence, or the only 
evidence, we have of the character of his thought consists 
in his writings. ‘They, it will hardly be disputed, prove 
this at least: that he was not in any sense, on any subject, a 
systematic thinker. Patience and coolness are the primary 
necessities for systematic thinking, and Luther was hot and 


I7I 


1E will be well, perhaps, to begin with a confession 


RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


impatient. He felt more than he considered, and on the 
whole knew better what he did not believe than what he 
believed. All his books are /ures de circonstance; they are 
items in an excited controversy. He was always an im- 
proviser ; and was always, I think, sincere in his utterance. 
So strongly did he believe what, at the moment, he was 
saying, and so important did it seem to him, that he habi- 
tually exaggerates. I am inclined to say that no humbug 
would have been so inconsistent as was Luther. 

The world, I think, presented itself to Luther in two 
quite different aspects. | He never succeeded in reconciling 
his perceptions, and wavered between two points of view. 
His most profound convictions were those he shared with 
the later medieval mystics. He declared that he had 
learned from the Theologia Germanica “‘ more of what God 
and Christ and man and all things are” than from any 
other writings save those of St Augustine and the Bible. 
But his deepest convictions clashed continually with his 
practical sense of what was immediately needed to secure 
the establishment of a reformed Church or of reformed 
Churches. It may be said of him that, in the long run, 
he sacrificed his deepest convictions to mere ‘ practical’ 
politics. “* Luther,’ said Caspar Schwenckfeld, “ has 
brought us up out of the land of Egypt and left us to perish 
in the wilderness.” But at least he did not himself see 
that he was doing that. His incoherence arose from the 
fact that he honestly held beliefs he could not reconcile. 

By some writers much has been made of a change 
supposed to have taken place in Luther’s views after 1525. 
I do not think that any profound or important change 
occurred except on one point; and even there it was not 
complete. He was preaching the duty of obedience to 
constituted authority as emphatically before 1525 as after; 
after that year there appears only a more exclusive insistence 
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MARTIN LUTHER 


on it. There is, after that year, more stress on the rights 
of rulers, less on Christian liberty and the need of resistance ; 
more on the need of order and less on the priesthood of man. 
That this change was due to his desire to strengthen the 
hands and to allay the fears of friendly princes there can 
be no doubt. But it was a change of stress and not a 
change of view. 

One important respect there is in which his views do 
seem to have altered. He started his career as a reformer 
with a conception of ‘faith’ that he may have derived 
from Catholic mysticism. By the ‘faith’ that justifies 
he seems, at first, to have meant an intimate sense of the 
presence and love of God, bringing with it assurance of 
redemption and safety. It is difficult to be sure what, 
in those early years, he meant by the ‘ Word of God.’ If 
it were not quite das innere Wort of Hans Denck, at least 
he did not identify it with the text of the Bible. But, 
later, and after 1530 perhaps ordinarily, he seems to have 
used the word ‘faith’ to signify mere conviction of the 
validity of dogma; while the actual text of Scripture 
tended to become for him the only ‘ Word’ of God. ‘The 
change was never quite definite or quite clear to himself; 
but as far as it went it was fundamentally important. It 
affected, of necessity, both his theology and his politics. It 
was, partly at least, his later conception of faith that made 
it possible for him to accept, as satisfactory structures, the 
churches set up in his name. It was partly this, also, that 
brought about the change of his views on the great practical 
question of toleration. 

From these preliminary considerations I turn to an 
attempt to summarise the content of Luther’s political 
thought as it appears in his writings. As soon as one sets 
out to do this it becomes apparent that, except by un- 
avoidable implication, Luther never dealt at all with any 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


problem of political thought save so far as circumstances 
forced him to do so. He never thought in terms of the 
State at all. 

Logically as well as chronologically Luther may be said 
to have begun with a sweeping negative. In the three 
great treatises of 1520 he not only utterly rejected the claims 
of the Papacy, but asserted that no coercive power belongs 
rightly to the Church as such, that the clergy are mere 
subjects like other people and have no claim to special 
privilege, and that the whole body of canon law is invalid. 
From these negative declarations certain consequences 
necessarily followed. Of the two sets of magistrates, civil 
and ecclesiastical, theoretically governing a united Christen- 
dom, the latter was in Lutheran theory abolished, the for- 
mer survived alone. Ata blow Christendom was resolved 
into a group, if not of states in the full sense, at least of 
territorial magistracies, independent and secular. The civil 
magistrate became at once the only guardian of law and 
order and the only power that could undertake a legal and 
official reformation of the Church. 

Two remarks may be made before going farther. In 
the first place, highly suggestive as it was, there was nothing 
whatever that was new about this assertion, unless, perhaps, 
the crudity with which it was made. That no coercive 
power belongs rightly to the Church had been asserted in 
the Defensor Pacis nearly two hundred years earlier. Luther 
seems to have read that work; but, whether or no he had 
actually read Part I of it, he never shows the least symptom 
of having understood it. If he had understood it he would 
assuredly have been shocked. 

In the second place, this declaration that no coercive 
power properly belonged to the Church, and that canon law 
is not binding on anyone, was only what was made by all 
the early Protestant reformers, and was one they could — 


174 


MARTIN LUTHER 


hardly avoid making. It was clear from the outset that 
no General Council that could be got together would be of 
any use to them. The only General Council that could 
conceivably have helped them would have been a Council 
of Protestant Churches. In 1520 there were no Protes- 
tant Churches. ‘The only possible allies of the Protestant 
reformers were the secular Governments. ‘The assertion 
that coercive authority rests solely with them simply had 
to be made; and as a matter of course it was made. But 
the making of it involved, for Luther, no theory of State 
right. ‘The assertion was simply to the effect that the claims 
of the Pope and clergy were based on nothing but imposture 
and superstition. It was a mere negative. It is, of course, 
true that later on the claims of the sacerdotium were revived, 
in an altered form, by Calvinism. ‘The earlier reformers 
simply denied them. 

But in all very general statements lurks exaggeration. 
The early Protestants were not, in fact, clear that the civil 
power, released from papal control, was not still in some 
sense subject to the Church. ‘They tended to hold to the 
notion of a Church having power to distinguish truth from 
error and declare the truth authoritatively. ‘‘ This power,” 
Luther wrote in 1520, “the Church certainly has: that 
she can distinguish the Word of God from the words of 
men. . . . The mind pronounces with infallible assurance 
that three and seven are ten and yet can give no reason 
why this is true, while it cannot deny that it is. . . . Even 
such a perception is there in the Church, by the illumina- 
tion of the Spirit, in judging and approving of doctrines.” 
The difficulty for the early Protestants was to say what 
or where the Church is. There was no idea in their minds 
of a State independent of any form of religion. 

Beginning with these negative assertions Luther soon 
had to go farther. As soon as he had made them he found 


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himself, as it were, face to face and alone with mere secular 
authority. He did not need to concern himself with the 
precise nature or derivation of that authority; and he never 
did concern himself with any question on the subject. 
But he was very much concerned with actual principalities 
and powers and their possible or probable modes of action, 
and with one special aspect of his own relation to them. 
There was just one question of politics that circumstances 
compelled all the early reformers to answer. It concerned 
their own duty ina perilous position. ‘‘ We,” they put it, 
““ who have the truth, who desire to live and to worship 
according to God’s Word and to order the Church in 
accordance with the Scriptures, are regarded as heretics 
and treated as criminals. What is our duty in relation 
to the civil magistrates, who persecute us and contemn the 
Word of God ?” 

No sort of answer, however evasive, could be given to 
this question that did not involve some sort of theory of 
civil authority. The fact to be noted here is that all the 
early reformers gave the same answer, even though it had 
not for all of them quite the same meaning. ‘They all, 
with one accord, proclaimed an all but unqualified duty of 
obedience to any and every regularly constituted authority. 
You must, of course, obey God rather than man: no one in 
the sixteenth century so much as suggests the contrary. 
But, though you may be justified in refusing to obey com- 
mands clean contrary to the law of God, you cannot be justi- 
fied in seeking to save yourself from punishment by any 
kind of forcible resistance. At most, you will be justified 
in flight. For armed rebellion there is no justification in 
any case whatever. 

It is important, at this point, to observe that almost all 
the Protestant reformers assumed from the first that it was 
necessary to set up formal and visible ‘Churches,’ with an 
176 


MARTIN LUTHER) 


official ministry, an official creed or ‘confession,’ a defined 
system of government. ‘Their desire was, literally, to reform 
theChurch. Theydesired todestroy, moreor lesscompletely, 
the actual organisation and the doctrinal system of the papal 
Church; but, for all that, the idea of the Church dominated 
their minds. It existed for them, always, as a fact visible or 
invisible. ‘They seem to have associated religion absolutely 
with the idea of a visible Church and earthly authority. 
When they discovered that it was not possible to set up a 
renovated Church for all Christendom they became resolved 
to organise local Churches. But without the co-operation of 
the civil power they could not reasonably hope to do so. 
There were, of course, dissenters among them. Caspar 
Schwenckfeld denied that it was possible, intheactual circum- 
stances, to establish any true visible Church. He desired 
only the spread of the invisible Church, constituted by 
those who had received the inward baptism of the Spirit and 
become new men. But the mass even of the “ Anabaptists”’ 
endeavoured to organise a formal and visible Church. ‘The 
idea that obedience to the civil magistrate is a religious duty, 
that is, a duty to God, and that forcible resistance to him is 
in no case justified, was as old as Christianity. It is, neverthe- 
less, a striking fact that all the early Protestants make this 
assertion. I do not think it difficult to see why they did 
so. ‘They themselves said that they found the doctrine 
in the Scriptures; but, later on, other Protestants found 
there doctrines very different. But on the one hand was 
the consciousness of the perilous pass into which they 
had come, of the peril of their cause; on the other was 
the hope of support from those constituted authorities 
they could not but fear. The one thing they could not 
afford to do was to antagonise the secular power. They 
followed the line of least resistance at the moment. | 
am not suggesting any conscious insincerity. But the 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


subsequent history of Protestantism in the sixteenth century 
seems to prove that everywhere and always the attitude 
of Protestants toward the civil authority was determined 
by their particular circumstances. 

Luther’s answer to the question of the duty of subject 
to ruler was merely that which was given by all Protestants, 
save a few fanatics, down to the time of the Magdeburg 
treatises of 1550. From 1520 onward his language on the 
subject was less emphatic than Tyndale’s and not so lucidly 
explicit as Calvin’s; but it was clear enough. Luther 
was, in his way, a patriotic German. He was hoping, in 
1520, for the establishment of a national German Church, 
freed from the Pope and united under the Emperor and the 
Bible. But, from 1521 onward, the attitude of Charles V 
made it clear that no such construction was possible. 
Thenceforward Luther could see in Germany only a chaos 
of conflicting claims and jurisdictions. In theory he 
greatly simplified that confusion by eliminating the claims 
of bishops and monasteries and chapters and clergy 
generally. ‘There remained a multitude of ‘magistrates,’ 
of various degrees, in more or less indefinite relation to 
each other and to the Emperor. So far as he thought 
politically, Luther thought only of Germany. On the 
question of the legal relation of magistrates of the Empire 
one to another he always spoke with great caution or 
refused to speak at all. It may perhaps be held, he told 
the Elector of Saxony in 1530, that princes of the Empire 
have, in certain cases, a legal right to resist the Emperor 
by force; but all that he is certain of is that no true 
Christian can set himself so to oppose his ruler, be he 
good or evil, but will rather suffer all manner of injustice. 
The Scriptures speak quite plainly. God has commanded 
obedience to magistrates in all things lawful by the law of 
God and has forbidden active resistance in any case and 
178 


MARTIN LUTHER 


for any cause. The inferior magistrate must obey his 
superior; the duty of the common man is simply to obey 
the magistrate. ‘‘God Almighty has made our princes 
mad”; but he has ordered us to obey them; and whoso 
resisteth shall receive damnation. It is not a question of 
how magistrates came to be where they are. Luther in- 
sists simply that God has commanded obedience to such 
magistrates as there are. Simply because this is so and 
for no other reason whatever, we must regard our magis- 
trates, good or bad, as set over us by God. “I will side 
always,” he declared in 1520, “‘ with him, however unjust, 
who endures rebellion and against him who rebels, however 
justly.” To plead rights in the face of God’s plain com- 
mand is impious as well as illogical. 

The command of God is all-sufficient; but Luther saw 
two good reasons for the command. If it should once 
be admitted, he wrote to the Elector of Saxony, that men 
have a right to resist their ruler whenever their ruler do 
wrong, ‘‘ there would remain neither authority nor obedi- 
ence in all the world.” Herr Omnes cannot truly dis- 
tinguish between right and wrong and is given to striking 
passionately, at random. But, further, Luther’s deepest 
conviction on this matter was that force and violence can 
never be a real remedy for anything. He expressed himself 
in that sense again and again. Rebellion is not only a 
breach of God’s express commandment; it is foolish also 
and worse than futile. The mass of men are real Chris- 
tians in no sense, and to rebel or to assert a right to rebel 
is merely to give increased opportunity to the wicked. 
Nothing is so satisfactory to the devil as civil commotion 
and conflict. No good can come of it; and in the infernal 
turmoil it is the innocent, and not the guilty, who suffer. 
The Word of God needs not man’s weapons, and God is 
always on the side of right. If you have faith you will be 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


content in that knowledge, and in quietness and confidence 
shall be your strength. You will, quite simply, obey God’s 
Word, knowing that to use violence is but adding evil to 
evil. 

But, simple as the view expressed seems to be, it was 
not quite so simple as itseems. Up to 1525, at all events, 
Luther was as conscious of the need of insisting on the 
duty of passive, as on the wickedness of active, resistance. 
The principle that we must always obey God rather than 
man covered, for Luther, a formidable array of cases and 
occasions. In the treatise Von Weltlicher Uberkeyt, pub- 
lished at Wittenberg in 1523, which contains the most 
complete exposition of his political views that he ever 
made, he is largely occupied in asserting divinely estab- 
lished limits to all human authority. If, after the Peasants’ 
Revolt, he was more concerned to emphasise the Christian’s 
duty of submission, that was only because it seemed to him 
that the times required him to do so. 

He asserts, with the utmost emphasis, that the civil 
magistrate has no authority at all in relation to Christian 
conscience and belief. It is for him to reform the Church; 
but it 1s not for him to say what men shall believe or how 
they shall worship. That can be settled only by reference 
to the Scriptures. “‘’The temporal regiment has laws that 
reach no farther than body and goods and what mere 
earthly things there are besides. For over souls God 
neither can nor will allow that anyone rule but Himself 
only.” Only a fool, indeed, would claim such authority. 
‘For no man can kill a soul nor give it life nor send it to 
heaven or to hell.” 

Princes, he declares, are ‘commonly the greatest fools 
or the worst scoundrels upon earth.” And though evil 
must not be forcibly resisted, yet ‘‘ one must not serve nor 
follow nor obey it with one foot or one finger.” If your 
180 


MARTIN LUTHER 


prince command you to believe this or that, or to put away 
your Bibles, “‘ you shall answer that it becometh not Lucifer 
to sit next to God. Dear Lord (you shall say), I owe you 
obedience in body and goods; command me in the 
measure of your earthly authority, and I will obey. But 
if you would take away my belief and my Scriptures, then 
will I not obey. . . . And if, for that, he take away your 
goods and punish your disobedience, be happy and thank 
God that you are worthy to suffer for His Word’s sake. 
Let him rage, the fool! he will find his judge.” 

But there is far more than this. The duty of obeying 
God rather than man limits the rights of the civil magis- 
trate only incidentally. For Luther the limitations of 
rightful authority arose essentially from the nature of law. 
We are apt to be misled when we find some one in the 
sixteenth century asserting that there is no justification 
for any kind of active resistance to constituted authority. 
We have come to associate the idea of political authority 
with that of a law-making power. ‘That association hardly 
existed for Luther. 

In Luther’s view human law and government are only 
requisite because men are not Christians. True Christians, 
he says, need no temporal power to rule them: it is the 
temporal power that needs them. The function of the 
civil magistrate is mainly the administration and en- 
forcement of a law that, for the most part, exists unal- 
terably. Customary or Imperial law, all merely man-made 
law, is binding only so far as it conforms to two other 
systems: to the law of God expressed in the Scriptures 
and to the law of God expressed in what Luther calls 
naturlich Recht. ‘This strictly medieval conception is the 
groundwork of all Luther’s thought on government. 
Absolute obedience is due to the magistrate in the 
exercise of his proper function, and active resistance is 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


forbidden in all cases. But refusal to obey is justified by 
any contravention of the law of God, which includes the 
‘“‘law of nature.” And the law of nature has its voice in 
the human conscience. Luther does not deny that a human 
power to make law exists, in a secondary sense. Law 
consists essentially in the Scriptures and in the conscience 
of man. But the precepts and principles of natural and 
of Scriptural law alike require adjustment to a complex 
of circumstance. Hence arises the necessity for a jus 
potivum. Allthe same, Luther was impatient and suspicious 
of all mere man-made law; and almost as much as the 
canon law did he dislike the Corpus Furis Civilis. Law may 
be necessary, he admitted; but he was sure there was 
far too much of it. The mass of man-made law, with its 
definitions, its subtleties, its technicalities, seemed to him 
useless or worse than useless. For the right judging of 
disputes among men, he declared, only a good conscience 
and love and reason are wanted. ‘‘If a judge have love 
and wisdom, law-books are worse than useless to him. . . . 
But without love and natural right [Nazurrecht] you will 
never be in accord with the Will of God, though you have 
devoured the Jurists and all their books.” It is vastly 
better, he declared, to appoint good judges than to make 
laws, however good. ‘“ All cases should be decided by 
natural justice.’ 

The assertion that Luther exalted the secular state 
seems to me completely erroneous. Only in the most 
limited sense did he recognise the State at all. He had 
no sort of theory of state-right, nor had he any conception 
of a sovereign law-making power. The State was, for him, 
an accidental result of God’s command to obey magistrates. 
By that command, since the jurisdictions of magistrates 
are territorial, the territorial state was created It exists, 
it is true, for the sake of peace and order; but it was not 
182 


MARTIN LUTHER 


the need of order that created it. It was created simply 
by God’s command, and that command was, it seems, 
given only because men are wicked. Luther seems to 
me to have had no conception of the State except as a group 
or system of governing ‘ magistrates.’ The prince is 
generally a fool or a rascal; but obedience is due to him. 
His authority is limited by the law of God ; that is, by the 
text of Scripture and by natural law. But he must not be 
forcibly resisted. Rebellion is forbidden by Scripture, 
and violence is never a remedy. On the other hand, 
of man-made law the less the better. We all know 
what is right, and where we cannot see the Scriptures 
will guide us. ‘“‘ Love needs no law,” and if we were all 
Christians we should need neither law nor prince. I think 
Luther was about as far as it is possible to be from a 
‘religion of the state.’ The religion of the state is for 
those who have no other. 

From 1520 onward Luther was teaching that it is the 
duty of the secular magistrate to undertake the reform of 
the Church. After 1521 he was asserting that every prince 
of the Empire was bound to do all he could to set up a 
reformed Church in his own dominions. The question 
“What constitutes a true Church?” had, then, to be 
faced. Luther’s answer to this question, though less clear 
and explicit, was the same, up to a certain point, as that 
of Calvin. Distinction must be made between the true 
Church universal and the Church visible or external. The 
universal Church, on earth, consists only of those who 
know and do the will of the Lord. But no one can 
know that anyone else is a member of that Church. It 
is, doubtless, infallible, but it has, unfortunately, no pos- 
sible collective utterance. But any visible and organised 
Church that is soundly based on the Scriptures, in which 
the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments duly 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


ministered, is a true Church. It is the duty of all secular 
princes to establish and maintain such Churches. In 
doing this work of righteousness the prince may organise 
the Church as he thinks fit in relation to mere earthly 
and temporal needs. He may confiscate existing Church 
property, he may appoint to benefice, he may deprive the 
clergy of all special jurisdiction. All this was taught 
by Luther with an increasingly emphatic clearness. But 
there was evidently a difficulty. Since no infallible person 
or court exists, who is to say when or where the pure Word 
of God is preached and the sacraments are duly ministered ? 
Luther had no answer to the question. He answered | 
it by referring the inquirer to the Scriptures: but it was 
just the meaning or bearing of the revelation in the Scrip- 
tures that was disputed. Implicit in his teaching was the 
assertion that his own interpretation of God’s revealed 
Will could not reasonably be disputed. But the point I 
must insist upon here is that never did Luther admit for a 
moment that the civil magistrate had any authority whatever 
in relation to doctrine or to the sacraments. It is not for 
him to say what is true religion and what right worship. 
He must take that from the Bible. Luther would never 
have admitted that to say it is the duty of a Government to 
maintain true religion is to say that the ruler is bound to 
maintain any religion he happens to think true. What 
true religion is may, according to Luther, easily be settled 
by reference to the Scriptures. ‘The ruler is bound to 
maintain true religion and has no choice about it. 

There remained a question of vast practical importance. 
Is the prince bound, for the maintenance of true religion, 
forcibly to suppress false doctrine and false worship within 
his own dominions ? On this great question of toleration, as 
we call it, debated throughout the sixteenth century, Luther’s 
utterances, taken as a whole, are not merely incoherent, 
184 


MARTIN LUTHER 


they are flatly self-contradictory. Castellion, later, was able 
to quote him in support of his plea for universal toleration; 
while Beza, righteously indignant at such a use of the great 

name, was able, as well, to quote him on the other side. 
To the question, considered as a practical one, there 
were three possible answers and only three: and, in the 
course of the sixteenth century, they were all three given. 
It might be held that the civil sovereign was under a posi- 
tive obligation to maintain true religion by force and use 
his sword to exterminate the wolves that threatened the fold. 
This was the view taken by Calvin and his followers and 
by large sections of the Catholics, including the Pope. 
Secondly, it might be held that though the secular sovereign 
had a right to suppress heresy by force he was under no 
obligation to do so. It lay with him to ‘tolerate’ or not 
as seemed good to him and to ‘ persecute’ as little or as 
much as he chose. ‘This, of course, was the view that 
all Governments tended to take. Thirdly, it was held, 
not by isolated thinkers, but by considerable groups of 
people, that the sovereign had no such right, but was 
bound to allow his subjects to believe what they could and 
live and worship accordingly, just so far as was consistent 
with the maintenance of social order. It is important here 
to note that only the second of these positions was consistent 
with any theory of absolute or unlimited State authority. 
Luther gave the first of these answers to the question; 
and he gave the third. He never gave the second. His 
inconsistency was due to the fact that on this question 
of toleration, even more than on any other, his deepest 
convictions were at war with his sense of what was prac- 
tically and immediately necessary. From 1520 to 1525 
he spoke for freedom fairly consistently. It may be said 
thatin those years he was claiming aright of private judgment 
in religion not only for himself—that every one was really 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


doing—but for other people. The use of force to propagate 
the Gospel, he declared in 1522, delights thedevil. ‘Faith 
must be voluntary.” In Vou Weltlicher Uberkeyt, in 1523, 
he asserted in the strongest language that religious belief 
is an entirely personal matter and that to make it a subject 
of legal prohibitions and penalties is unjust and absurd. 
‘““A judge,” he wrote, “‘ should and must be very certain 
in giving judgment and have all things before him in clear 
light. But the thoughts and meanings of the soul can be 
manifest to none but God. Therefore it is futile and im- 
possible to command or to force any man to believe this or 
that. . . . Thus is it each man’s own business what he 
believe; and he himself must see to it that he believe 
aright. As little as another can go to heaven or to hell 
for me and as little as he can shut or open to me heaven or 
hell, so little can he drive me to belief or to disbelief.’’ From 
this he went on to point out that Governments, by the use 
of force, can, at most, compel people to say they believe what 
they do not believe. It is better, he declared, that they 
should err than that they should lie. 

‘* Heresy,” he added, “‘ can never be contained by force. 
. . . God’s word must do the fighting here; and if that 
avail not, then will it remain unchecked by temporal 
authorities, though they fill the world with blood. Heresy 
is a spiritual thing, cut with no iron, burned with no fire, 
drowned with no water. It is God’s Word only that can 
avail. ‘There is no greater strengthener of faith and of 
heresy than to work against it without the Word of God 
and by mere force. . . . For we cannot go about even 
worldly things with mere force, unless injustice has already 
been overcome by justice. How much more hopeless is 
it in these high, spiritual matters ! . . . Though we should 
burn every Jew and heretic by force, yet neither were there 
nor will there be one conquered or converted thereby.”’ So 
186 


MARTIN LUTHER 


Luther wrote at his best and at the height of his influence. 
And again, in his circular of 1524 to the Saxon princes, 
he declared that even Anabaptists should be allowed to 
preach freely. ‘‘ All should preach freely and stoutly as 
they are able and against whom they please. . . . Let the 
spirits fall upon one another and fight it out.” 

Yet, as early as 1523, Luther declared that the public 
celebration of Mass is public blasphemy and should be 
put down by public authority. This gross inconsistency 
was curtly pointed out in a letter written to him by the 
Elector of Saxony. In 1525, under pressure of circum- 
stances, he began to wobble badly: no one who does not 
know a good deal about the conditions can realise how 
severe that pressure was. In that year he declared that 
the secular ruler must protect his people by force against 
the diabolical activities of Anabaptists—a flat contradiction 
of his circular of the previous year. From that time on- 
ward to about 1530 he continued to contradict himself 
at intervals. In 1527-8 he acquiesced in the taking of 
severe measures against Catholics and Anabaptists. In 
1520 he says that every one is free to believe what he 
pleases, but should not be allowed to teach what he pleases. 
If a man wish to attack the true faith, “ let him go where 
there are no Christians and do as he likes there.” Yet as 
late as 1531, in his Preface to the Shorter Catechism, he 
declared that ‘‘we neither can nor should force anyone 
into the faith.” 

Circumstances were too much for him, and after 1531 
he went over almost completely to the side of those who, 
for one reason or another, believed in the maintenance 
of pure religion by force. In 1533 he laid down the 
general principle that it is the duty of the magistrate to 
use his sword for all it is worth for the destruction 
of false doctrine and false worship. To that principle he 

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


thereafter fairly consistently adhered. And yet, though he 
seems to have convinced himself that only by the use of 
the civil sword against heretics and blasphemers could 
true religion actually be maintained, it seems that to the 
end he must have had misgivings and inward revulsions. 
In his very last sermon, preached on February 7, 1546, less 
than a fortnight before his death, on the parable of the 
tares, he reverted to his earlier view. It is useless, he de- 
clared, to attempt to destroy heresy by force: the tares, 
even Catholics and Anabaptists, must be left in the field 
till the last harvest. 

I wish to emphasise the point that, whatever his view at 
the moment, there is just one thing that Luther never 
says. He says that religious persecution is futile, he even 
says it is unjust; he says it is necessary, and he says it is 
a duty. But never for a moment did he admit that it 
was for the secular sovereign to decide for himself whether 
or no to tolerate heresy. ‘To him persecution was either 
altogether wrong or it was a sheer duty. He never quite 
knew which it was. But in this as in other matters Luther’s 
view was never reconcilable with any theory of absolutism 
in the State. 

I have now summarised all the political thought that 
I can find in Luther’s writings. So far as I can see 
there is no more. It seems evident that his thought 
was essentially unpolitical. He represented, incoherently, 
divergent tendencies in early Protestant political thought, 
which all found clearer and more complete expression 


later. He was not a forerunner of the religion of the — 


State, he was not even a forerunner of Bodin; but 
he was, politically, a forerunner at once of Calvin and of 
Knox, of Castellion and the Armenians, and even of the 
Mennonites. ‘There is nothing distinctive or peculiar in 
his teaching on the duty of subject to ruler. ‘There is really 
188 


MARTIN LUTHER 


nothing distinctive in his political thought at all, except 
that part of it which derived from his mysticism: nk pro- 
found pacifism, his conviction that violence was no remedy 
for anything, his dislike and suspicion of man-made law, 
his occasional glimpses of a Christian commonwealth 
which needed neither law nor magistrate. I must adda few 
words about his political influence. The question of a 
man’s influence is always a very difficult one. We are apt 
to forget that one man’s influence on another is a very 
complex thing. There are always at least two people 
concerned. We are apt to forget that the same word or 
deed may influence two men in opposite directions. As 
for the* written word, there is a constant tendency to 
overestimate its power; and this tendency is especially 
strong among bookish people. It seems to me that there 
has been a deal of wild talk about Luther’s influence and, 
at times, really grotesque exaggeration. It has been said 
that ‘‘had there been no Luther there could never have 
been a Louis XIV.”’ I think that even the fascination of 
epigram could hardly take a man farther from the truth 
than that. The remark seems quite meaningless, unless 
we substitute the word Reformation for the word Luther. 
But had there been no Reformation the Europe of the early 
sixteenth century would have been quite unlike what it 
was. Of what, in that case, would have been later we ob- 
viously know nothing. Actually no connexion can be traced 
between Luther and Louis XIV. The development that 
took place in France was completely independent of Luther. 
In Luther’s lifetime French lawyers were already expounding 
a theory of the French State far more absolutist and far 
more coherent than any theory of Luther’s. If it had been 
said that had there been no law school in the University of 
Toulouse there could have been no Louis XIV it would 
not have been true, but it would have been intelligible. 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


Luther’s courageous stand against principalities and 
powers from 1517 to 1521 was potent as an example 
and as a stimulant all over Western Christendom. It 
was the interest his conduct aroused and the prestige 
it brought him that gave their immense vogue to the 
treatises of 1520. It was in that year and-in the few 
years immediately following that his personal influence 
was greatest. But it is impossible to attribute to his 
stimulating example any definite results in the world 
of political thought. It was certainly of importance that 
such a man should have preached, with a constant and 
increasing emphasis, the duty of obedience to the civil 
magistrate and the wrongfulness in all cases of armed 
resistance and rebellion. Few, indeed, at the time, can 
have formed any definite notion of Luther’s political 
doctrines as a whole. But what the common man needs 
and seeks is merely a practical conclusion and rule of life. 
In Germany, at least, Luther must have done a good 
deal to strengthen that tendency to regard rebellion against 
constituted civil authority as rebellion against God, which, 
strong ever since St Paul’s time, was in the sixteenth 
century becoming stronger than ever it had been. But 
facts do not seem to justify us in saying more than this. 
Everywhere in the first half of the sixteenth century the 
Protestants were preaching the same doctrine. Even the 
mass of those currently called Anabaptists taught sub- 
mission to civil authority. Nor was there anything at all 
distinctively Protestant about this view. ‘The same con- 
clusion was being simultaneously taught, from a different 
point of view, in the law schools of France and Italy. It 
was taught by Bishop Gardiner as well as by Tyndale and 
asserted as clearly by L’Hépital as by Calvin. 

It is clear, too, that if Luther’s influence drew many 
in the direction of a submissive dependence upon civil 
190 


MARTIN LUTHER 


authority he must have moved many others in a quite con- 
trary direction. His insistence on the duty of resisting man 
in obedience to God, his early insistence on natural priest- 
hood and Christian liberty, above all, perhaps, his insist- 
ence that a truly Christian community would need neither 
law nor magistrate, must have drawn many minds toward 
whatis roughly called Anabaptism. Those who accused him, 
in spite of his emphatic assertions of the duty of submission, 
of inciting to violent revolution, were not so very far wrong. 
“I believe,’’ he wrote in 1520, “‘ that there is on earth, 
wide as the world, but one holy, common Christian Church, 
which is no other than the community of the saints... . 
I believe that in this community or Christendom all things 
are in common and each man’s goods are the other’s, and 
nothing is simply a man’s own.”’ Luther’s thought was 
nearer that of the Anabaptists than he himself was aware. 

Luther has been far too much identified with the results 
of the Reformation in Germany and even in Europe at 
large. He has been far too much identified with what is 
called “‘ Lutheranism.” His influence in Germany and 
in the lands to the north of it was great ; in the Nether- 
lands it was considerable, in England slight, and in France 
it is hardly traceable after 1525. Ideally there is little 
connexion between his teaching and the systems of govern- 
ment that were established in Germany by the princes he 
tried to use and who made use of him. He gave his great 
name to state-ridden Churches along with but small measure 
of his great spirit. He ought to have known better than 
to do so: we may say, perhaps, that he did know better, 
though he never knew it. His life was a tragedy, that he 
never, himself, appreciated. 


J. W. ALLEN 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A. PrimMARY SOURCES 


Lutuer, Martin: Werke. Kritische Gesammtausgabe. Weimar, 1883- 

1904. 

Oyen Latina ad Reformationis Historiam Imprimis Pertinentia. Frank- 
fort, 1865-73. f 

Briefwechsel, edited by C. A. Burkhardt. Leipzig, 1866. 

Briefwechsel, edited by W. Enders. Frankfort, 1884-93. 

Die drei Reformationsschriften Luthers vom Fahre 1520. Gotha, 1884. 

The Three Primary Works of Luther, translated by Wace and Buchheim. 
London, 1885. 

Table Talk, edited by Hazlitt. London, 1goo. 


B. SECONDARY SOURCES 


Jacos, H. E.: Martin Luther. New York, 1898. 

Koéstuin, J.: Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften. Elberfeld, 
1875. 

Linpsay, 'T.. M.: Luther and the German Reformation. Edinburgh, 1900. 

Metancutuon, P.: Historia de Vita et Actis Lutheri. Wittenberg, 1545. 

Murray, R. H.: Erasmus and Luther. London, 1920. 

Warine, L. H.: The Political Theories of Martin Luther. New York, 
IQIO. 


192 


VIII 
JOHN CALVIN 


HE critical point in the life of Calvin is the year 
1536. In that year he published the first edition 


of his Institutes of the Christian Religion and almost 
at once stood out in the public eye as the leading intellect 
of the reforming movement. In the same year he took up 
his abode in Geneva, from which city, with one short 
interval, he was to exercise a growing and determinative 
influence on the thought and politics of Europe. It was 
by what must seem to the outward eye an accident that the 
city of Geneva claimed its greatest citizen. Calvin had 
no intention of staying there and no desire to spend his life 
in tasks of government and leadership. He was looking 
forward to a career of study and authorship in which he 
would defend and expound by the pen the divine truth 
which he had only lately fully understood. The French 
preacher Farel, who was attempting to direct the Protestant 
but turbulent citizens of Geneva, spoke then to an unwilling 
man when he urged Calvin to share with him the task 
which seemed beyond his own powers. ‘The vehement 
adjuration with which Farel warned him not to refuse the 
call struck on Calvin’s mind with the force of a divine 
command, and he recognised, in later years, the working 
of Providence through this sudden appeal, carrying him 
where he would not and to destinies which he had not 
chosen. 
The man who thus entered upon his life-work was not 
unformed. On the contrary, though he was only twenty- 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


seven years of age, the foundations of his character and 
thought had already been laid, and it was a person of 
settled convictions and determined outlook who became a 
coadjutor and soon almost an autocrat in the Protestant 
republic. Born at Noyon in Picardy, he was the son of 
an ecclesiastical official, his father being the procurator fiscal 
and secretary tothe bishop. In his earliest years he became 
familiar with the abuses which prevailed in the old ecclesi- 
astical system, since the see of Noyon was the appanage of 
a powerful aristocratic family and was the scene of un- 
dignified quarrels between the bishop and the chapter of 
the cathedral. Ata tender age also Calvin began to profit 
by these abuses and, when twelve years old, obtained a 
chaplaincy through the influence of his father. Partly 
supported by the revenue thus acquired, he studied in the 
University of Paris with a view to qualifying himself for 
an ecclesiastical career. After four years of life in Paris, 
however, he began the study of law, which he pursued with 
great diligence in Orleans and Bourges. The change in the 
direction of his studies appears to have been due primarily 
to the instigation of his father, who was probably not 
unable to read the signs of the times ; nevertheless, Calvin 
seems to have found in law a subject congenial to his mind. 
We shall understand him better if we remember his years 
at Orleans and Bourges. The first-fruits of this period of 
intellectual activity appeared in a commentary on Seneca’s 
De Clementia, which gave promise that its author would 
become one of the foremost scholars of his time. One 
characteristic of this work, however, leads to the question 
when the mind of Calvin began to move toward the new 
views of religion. ‘There is no evidence in the Commentary 
of interest in theological questions; but it is certain that 
its author had already come under the influence of men 
such as Olivetan and Lefévre, who were adherents of 


194 


JOHN CALVIN 


the evangelical faith. It is clear, however, that shortly 
after its publication Calvin definitely abandoned all inten- 
tion of being ordained to the priesthood and ranged himself 
with the reforming party. The turning-point came in 1533, 
when Nicholas Cop, Rector of the University of Paris, 
delivered an inaugural address advocating the New Testa- 
ment as the basis of theology. It is believed that Calvin 
had a great share in the composition of this address, and 
it is at least certain that he withdrew to Basel during the 
outcry which followed, apparently regarding the event as a 
definite breach with the past. 

We may thus discern, besides the influence of the 
new interest in and understanding of the Bible, two other 
formative influences which left an abiding impression on 
Calvin’s mind. He was a humanist. All the greater re- 
formers were to some extent children of the new learning, 
but none had perhaps so clear a right in the family as he. 
Calvin’s most permanent contribution to literature is to be 
found in his commentaries on Scripture. ‘They bear the 
marks of one who had learned in the school of classical 
studies to interpret the meaning of an author and to con- 
sider the circumstances in which he wrote. And he was 
a lawyer. It is to this, perhaps, that we should attribute 
the less attractive elements in his thinking. His theology 
is legal, and his mind is clear rather than capacious, ruthless 
in logic rather than rich in reflection. 

The Reformation was not like a river which becomes 
sundered into two streams at some distance from its source. 
There were two streams from the beginning, one rising 
in Germany, the other in Switzerland. Calvin belongs to 
the Swiss Reformation. Though both Zwingli and Calvin 
were influenced by Luther, the former was preaching his 
new doctrine before any writing of the German reformer 
came into his hands, and the latter from the beginning 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


maintained an independent position. The Reformed 
Church which has as its Fathers Zwingli and Calvin 
shared, of course, in the Lutheran hostility to Rome and 
co-operated in this common controversy. From the out- 
set, however, the Reformed Church exhibited many im- 
portant differences from its Lutheran sister. It arose, not 
as the Lutheran movement in monarchical states, but in 
republics, and it naturally tended to take a more democratic 
colour. Closely connected with this is its international 
character. While the Lutheran movement allied itself 
with national Governments, and organised itself in state 
and national Churches, the Calvinist movement escaped 
this limitation and approached the status of a universal 
Church transcending national frontiers and opposing to 
the world-wide claim of Rome a pretension not less com- 
prehensive. During the later years of his life in Geneva 
Calvin ruled by his influence an ecclesiastical organisation 
scarcely less united and scarcely less extensive than that 
which acknowledged the Pope. The difference in spirit 
between the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches was partly 
reflected and partly caused by a difference in theological 
standpoint. ‘The Lutheran theology was less drastic in its 
reaction against the old system, and in spite of the violence 
of his language Luther desired no violent break with the past. 
The form of worship was changed as little as possible; the 
Mass in its essential features was preserved; and, as is 
well known, Luther maintained a stubborn resistance to 
any doctrine of the Eucharist which would deny the real 
presence. ‘The Lutherans had no theoretical objection to 
episcopacy so long as the bishops would allow the pure 
Gospel to be preached, by which they meant the doctrine 
of justification by faith. ‘There was not even a necessary 
and de fide opposition to the Papacy as an institution. 
Melanchthon declared that he had no objection to recog- 
196 


JOHN CALVIN 


nising the authority of the Pope jure humano, provided 
that the Pope did not oppose the Gospel. 

‘* Calvinism was in a sense quite unknown to Lutheranism 
the conscious and constant antithesis to Rome.’”’1 ‘These 
words of Dr Fairbairn are true. The legal and logical 
intelligence of Calvin could not be satisfied with compro- 
mise and uncertainty. He was happy only with antitheses, 
and his power in the world of the sixteenth century arose 
chiefly from the fact that he provided the Reformation with 
a scheme of doctrine as coherent and an ideal of Church 
order as definite as those of the Roman enemies. ‘To the 
infallibility of the Church was opposed the infallibility 
of the Word of God, to the rounded system of scholastic 
theology, based on Aristotle and the dogmas of the Church, 
was opposed a scheme of doctrine founded on one leading 
thought—the sovereignty of God. 

Though the Calvinistic theology has real and important 
characteristics which differentiate it from the Lutheran, 
we must beware of exaggerating them into a radical oppo- 
sition. ‘The difference is one of emphasis and order of 
thought, not of actual disagreement. The theology of 
the orthodox Reformation as a whole was based upon the 
assertion of the supreme authority of Scripture, and in 
this matter Calvin is its true child. It would be a great 
mistake to regard him as primarily a philosopher working 
out a view of the world from the starting-point of a prin- 
ciple which he had accepted on purely rational grounds. 
His teaching is Biblical theology, not philosophy, and is 
intended to be an exposition of the deliverances of the 
infallible Word of God. It is interesting, therefore, to ob- 
serve the grounds on which he accepted this fundamental 
authority. His position with regard to Scripture is in 
some respects less modern than that of Luther, who was 

1 A.M. Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 149. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


prepared to question the full inspiration of some books in 
the canon. Calvin has no such doubts. He takes the 
books of the Bible as contained in the Vulgate, with the 
exception of the so-called Apocrypha, without question. 
There is, however, a note of a much more modern kind in 
Calvin’s attitude toward Scripture. It is a remarkable fact 
that he appears to have felt little need to defend its authority 
or inspiration. His theological position, of course, pre- 
cluded him from deriving the authority of the Bible from 
that of the Church. He relies almost entirely on the testi- 
mony of the Holy Spirit to the individual. ‘Though he 
dwells upon the antiquity of the books which compose 
the Old Testament he really bases everything upon inter- 
nal evidence. The Bible commends itself to us by its 
very nature as the Word of God; it is adtémictos, self- 
evidencing : when we read it with a pious mind we cannot 
doubt that it is true and comes from God. It is suffi- 
ciently evident that this doctrine, carried to its logical con- 
clusion, would issue in a thorough individualism, since the» 
evidence of revelation would consist in the reaction of every 
person, taken one by one, to the Bible. Very far from 
Calvin’s intention, however, was any such conclusion, and 
he had certainly no notion of tolerating those who, having 
read the Bible with as pious a mind as they could command, 
failed to find in it the Word of God. Nor, again, does he 
wish that every man should interpret for himself the divine 
oracles. No one was more conscious than he of the natural 
imbecility of the human intelligence or of the confusions 
and mistakes which must arise from unguided liberty of 
exegesis. ‘The Jnstitutes of the Christian Religion is put for- 
ward by him as a clue to the meaning of Scripture, a key 
to the essential teaching of revelation. Thus in the preface 
to the second edition he says: “ Having thus as it were 
prepared the way, I shall not feel it necessary in any com- 
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JOHN CALVIN 


mentaries on Scripture which I may afterward publish to 
enter into long discussions of doctrine. In this way the 
pious reader will be saved much trouble and weariness, pro- 
vided he comes furnished with a knowledge of the present 
work as an essential prerequisite.” 

From the theological point of view the Reformation 
may be regarded as a revival of the religious conceptions 
of St Paul and St Augustine: Against the doctrine of 
merit was set up again the master-thought of the omni- 
potent and infinite God apart from whose grace man could 
do no good and in whose presence man could make no 
clam. The Apostle of the Gentiles had connected with 
this conception a view of history which he derived from 
Judaism and ultimately from the Hebrew prophets. In 
his vision the course of the world was no chance current 
of events, but a providential order in which every turn was 
foreknown and foreordained by God, so that even the re- 
jection of Israel was a part of the divine plan for the human 
race. ‘This conception of the infinite and sovereign God 
is the foundation-stone of Calvin’s religion as it had 
been for St Paul and Augustine. His teaching is in the 
full sense a theology—a doctrine of God. ‘The world is 
created by God, and His Will is the ultimate cause of 
every event within it. Not only so, but the end or purpose 
of creation is nothing else but God. It exists for His glory 
and for no other reason at all. The damned no less than 
the saved contribute to this end, for if the latter display 
His mercy the former exemplify His justice. ‘‘'The strength 
of Calvinism lay in the place and pre-eminence it gave to 
God : it magnified Him ; humbled man before His awful 
majesty, yet lifted him in the very degree that it humbled 
him. Catholicism is essentially a doctrine of the Church. 
Calvinism is essentially a doctrine of God.” 4 

1 A.M. Fairbairn, op. cit. 


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The doctrine of predestination, which is often said to be 
the distinguishing feature of Calvin’s teaching, is in reality 
a consequence of this conception of God. It is clear that 
a thoroughgoing theory of divine sovereignty and provi- 
dence cannot remain content with looking on the general 
tendency of history as the expression of the divine will. 
History is, after all, made by the lives and wills of indi- 
viduals, and these too must be brought under the same 
principle. ‘There can be little doubt that St Paul uses 
language which, if pressed to its logical conclusion, would 
seem to deny any real freedom to the individual in the 
ordinary sense of the words, and which seems to imply the 
predestination of a part of the human race to salvation. 
There are, however, other passages in the Pauline writings 
which convey a different idea, and it is manifestly an error 
to treat the Epistles as a system of theology. ‘This was, 
however, the error which was made by all the Reformers, 
and by no one more thoroughly than by Calvin. The pre- 
destination element in St Paul’s thought was taken without 
qualification by the theologians of the Reformation as an 
essential part of the Christian faith. Calvin is not alone 
here. Luther in his De Servo Arbitrio had seized the same 
‘““ hammer ”’ to smash the belief in the possibility of human 
merit. ‘There is no real difference between the two great 
Reformers on this point, except that Calvin works out the 
conception with greater clearness and more lawyer-like 
persistence. It may, indeed, even be argued that Calvin 
was less extreme in his predestination doctrine than Luther ; 
for the latter, following Duns Scotus, appears to hold that 
even moral distinctions depend upon the arbitrary Will of 
God, upon a mere fiat without law or reason. Calvin, it 
is true, speaks sometimes in a manner which might be 
thought to have the same implication. ‘“‘ What temerity 
it is even to inquire the causes of God’s Will, seeing that 
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JOHN CALVIN 


this is, and of good right ought to be, the cause of all the 
things that are. . . . The Will of God is in such a manner 
the supreme rule and ruler of justice that it is necessary to 
hold everything just because He wills it. ‘Therefore when 
it is asked, Why has God done this ? it must be replied, 
Because He has willed it. If we go farther and ask why 
He has willed it, that is to ask for something higher and 
greater than the Will of God, which cannot be found.” 
But these passages do not fully express Calvin’s view on 
the subject.. He does not mean to separate the Will of 
God from the nature of God or think of a bare will. ‘‘ We 
do not imagine a God who has no law, seeing that He is a 
law to Himself.” “‘It is certain that the goodness of God 
is so united with His divinity that it is not less necessary 
for Him to be Will than to be God.”’! Calvin’s real view 
seems to be that the Will of God is the expression of the 
divine nature which itself embraces both the law of justice 
and the norm of goodness. 

The doctrine of predestination is then a logical deduc- 
tion from the Calvinistic conception of God. It was, 
moreover, no new thing in Christian theology. In all 
its essential features it is to be found in Augustine. At- 
tempts have been made to draw a clear distinction between 
Augustine’s teaching on this matter and that of Calvin, 
but to little effect. Important divergencies between the 
two thinkers arise from their diverse conceptions of the 
Church and sacramental system, but fundamentally there 
is agreement. The words of Dr J. B. Mozley sum up 
the doctrine and the coincidence of Calvin and Augustine 
with a clearness and precision which cannot be surpassed : 
““ I see no substantial difference between the Augustinian 
and Thomist and the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. 


1 For these and other passages referred to see E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, 
vol, ii, pp. 120-125. 


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St Augustine and Calvin alike hold an eternal divine 
decree, which, antecedently to all action, separates one 
portion of mankind from another, and ordains one to ever- 
lasting life and the other to everlasting punishment. ‘That 
is the fundamental statement of both; and it is evident 
that while this fundamental statement is the same there 
can be no substantial difference in the two doctrines.’’ 1 
It would, however, be an error to suppose that this view 
of the condition of the human race is equivalent to a doctrine 
of fatalism. Possibly the position of Calvin ought logically 
to have led to such a conclusion, but it is certainly one which 
he did not draw. To make a coherent theory out of his 
statements about the human will and freedom is probably 
impossible, but we can at least assert that he repudiated 
the charge of making God the author of sin as a calumny 
on his theology. Man is really responsible for the evil that 
he does. The opposite of freedom, Calvin holds, is not 
necessity, but constraint. ‘The will of man is not con- 
strained, because it is not moved by forces acting from 
outside. It is moved from within. But, though not con- 
strained, it is necessitated. The actions of a man may 
truly be attributed to his will, and he must be considered, 
therefore, as their author and responsible. Nevertheless, 
in the man who is not among the elect and whose will 
is not sanctified by irresistible grace there is no possi- 
bility of choosing good. His will, though not constrained, 
is necessitated, being the will of a fallen being, to the choice 
of evil. ‘“‘ Weagree that man has a will, such that when he 
does evil he ought to impute it to himself and to the choice 
of his will. . . . We deny that this will is free, because, 
on account of the natural perversity in man, he tends 
necessarily to evil and can only desire evil.”’ ? 


1 Predestination, pp. 393 ff., where the chief passages are collected. 
2 E. Doumergue, fean Calvin, vol. iv, p. 169. 


202 


JOHN CALVIN 


The reader may well be complaining that he has heard 
so far nothing about Calvin’s political and social ideas, and 
seems to be presented instead with a theological discussion. 
If, however, he is a wise reader he will understand that 
Calvin’s theology is really the chief part of what he has to 
say about social life, and that to expound any aspect of 
his teaching apart from its theological root is the certain 
way to misinterpretation. The few pages given to Calvin 
in the text-books of the histories of political ideas which are 
now appearing in large numbers are melancholy evidence 
of this truth. It is to be feared that the students who read 
these text-books for the purpose of examination gain from 
them simply the impression that he was a theologian who 
held some commonplace and rather incoherent opinions 
about society and exercised a quite incomprehensible in- 
fluence on history. ‘They would know more about Calvin’s 
position even as a political thinker if they had some know- 
ledge of his theology and knew nothing of his compara- 
tively meagre remarks upon social and political theory. 
For Calvin’s whole thought is determined by his views 
about God and man’s estate. It is, indeed, a misnomer 
to call them ‘views.’ In his mind they were the assured 
and indubitable truth. As Mark Pattison has said, ‘‘ His 
theory was not a part of his mental furniture as other men’s 
theories are to them. ‘It was the whole of his intellect. 
No question had to him two sides. There was but one 
right reason. All other modes of thought were depravity, 
not reason at all, but moral perversity.”1 Calvin’s con- 
ception of life and its conditions is in many respects remote 
from the modern mind, yet not in all its aspects. ‘The 
power of a determinist creed has recently been shown again 
in the Russian revolution, where the triumph remained not 
with the reformers who talked of freedom, but with the 

1 “ Calvin at Geneva.” 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


army which marched under the banner of the materialistic 
conception of history. Karl Marx is a kind of economic 
Calvin. But the difference is, of course, profound. There 
is a dramatic colouring and an other-worldliness in Calvinism 
which cannot be found in theories which have a merely 
social aim. We cannot help feeling something of its 
sombre grandeur. ‘This little life of ours is an episode in 
the eternal drama. ‘The characters were cast long before 
the present scene began, and the dénouement lies beyond. 
Meanwhile the actors are playing their parts, which are 
determined, though to them unknown. ‘The meaning of 
the present order is to be found entirely outside it, in the 
hidden divine decrees which are prior to creation and in 
the final separation hereafter between the elect and the 
reprobate. Calvinism as held by Calvin is the most extreme 
‘ other-world’ religion. 

When we make real to ourselves in imagination the kind 
of universe in which Calvin lived and thought we can see 
at once that the questions which have agitated political 
and social reformers must have for him at the most a sub- 
ordinate interest. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness 
in this world could have little consequence for one whose 
eyes were fixed upon the eternal destinies. Freedom to 
worship God in accordance with His Will is desirable, but 
Calvin would have felt nothing but contempt for a man 
who could find in progress toward some earthly Utopia 
sufficient food for the life of the spirit. Nevertheless, the 
social interests cannot be ignored entirely even by the 
most fervent believer in an ‘other-worldly’ creed, and 
Calvin’s life in Geneva brought him face to face with 
most of the problems of government. As we might ex- 
pect, however, the organisation of the Church and its dis- 
cipline occupy a far greater place in his mind than the 
civil State, and the question with him is not, as it might 
204 


JOHN CALVIN 


be with a modern thinker, what should be the position of 
the ecclesiastical body within the State, but rather what 
functions does the true conception of the Church allow to 
or impose upon the State. The duties and privileges of 
secular magistrates are discussed at the end of the Justi- 
tutes, and the whole treatment is almost perfunctory com- 
pared with the elaborate argument of the rest of that 
work. Calvin is as definitely an ecclesiastical statesman as 
any Pope, and we shall do well therefore to approach his 
ideas concerning society through his doctrine of the Church. 
Like the Protestant theology the Protestant conception 
of the Church owes much to Augustine. That Father had 
drawn a distinction between the actual organised Christian 
community and the Communio Sanctorum which alone can 
claim to be the true Church. Those who are genuinely 
members of the Church of Christ are they only who belong 
to the company of the elect and are saved by grace and 
predestined to eternal life; and they are by no means 
identical with those who are outwardly adherents of the 
ecclesiastical polity. ‘This distinction has introduced a 
good deal of confusion into Augustine’s teaching, for it is 
by no means always clear whether he means the actual 
or the ideal Church to be regarded as the Civitas Dei. 
This distinction, which was only partially explicit in the 
thought of Augustine, becomes quite definite in the theory 
of the reformers. The opinion of Wycliffe, guod nullum 
est membrum Sancte Matris Ecclesie nisi persona predest- 
nata, was that of Luther and Calvin alike, but as the 
latter worked out the consequences of predestination more 
logically so he seized more firmly upon the implied doctrine 
of the Church. In Calvin the distinction becomes that 
between the Church visible and the Church invisible. The 
invisible Church consists of those, known only to God, who 
by His inscrutable decree have been preordained to become 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


His children by grace. But this true invisible Church re- 
quires a concrete organ and is partially manifested in a 
visible society. Calvin tells us clearly enough what he 
means by the visible Church. It is “the whole multi- _ 
tude dispersed throughout the world who profess to worship 
one God and Jesus Christ, who are initiated into His faith 
by baptism, who testify their unity in true doctrine and 
charity by a participation in the Holy Supper, who consent 
to the Word of the Lord, and preserve the ministry which 
Christ has instituted for the purpose of preaching it.” 4 
It is most important to notice that nothing could be farther 
from Calvin’s intention than to weaken the claim of the 
visible Church on the allegiance of men; nothing would 
have been more distasteful to him than the argument that, 
since the true Christians are known only to God, a man 
may safely separate himself from the fellowship of the 
Christian society. On the contrary, there is only one 
Church, and it is the duty of all men to remain in com- 
munion with her. ‘“* We may learn from her title of mother 
how useful and even necessary it is for us to know her; 
since there is no other way of entrance into life, unless we 
are conceived by her, born of her, nourished at her breasts, 
and continually preserved under her care and government 
till we are divested of this mortal flesh and become like the 
angels. For our infirmity will not admit of our dismission 
from her school; we must continue under her instruction 
and discipline to the end of our lives. Out of her bosom 
there can be no remission of sins. . . . It is always dan- 
gerous to be separated from the Church.”? The most 
rigid Catholic could scarcely desire to strengthen this 
language, and we may learn from it that the quarrel be- 
tween Calvin and Rome had nothing to do with any attempt 
to lighten the pressure of ecclesiastical discipline. Like 


1 Inst., IV, i, 7. 2 Ibid., IV, i, 4. 
206 


JOHN CALVIN 


his opponents, he believed that there was only one true 
universal Church. He was far enough from wishing to 
set free the human spirit from moral and religious tutelage, 
and the Genevan theocrat would have had all men in an 
ecclesiastical school far more strict and efficient than that 
over which the Pope nominally presided. Only Calvin 
was sure that the papal Church was not the true Church, 
and its discipline not a discipline in godliness. So far had 
it departed from the Scriptural norm that it represented 
Antichrist. ‘‘ The Papists practice a grosser idolatry [than 
that of Jeroboam]. . . . We can scarcely assemble with 
them on a single occasion without polluting ourselves with 
open idolatry. The principal bond of their communion is 
certainly the Mass, which we abominate as the greatest 
sacrilege.”1 The ‘note’ of the true Church for Calvin 
is that it is Scriptural, and in the application of this 
principle he goes farther than either Luther or Zwingli. 
For him custom and tradition have no authority; nothing | 
must be admitted into the worship and order of the Church 
which cannot be found in the Bible, wherein alone authority 
resides. 

The ecclesiastical polity which followed from these 
principles was necessarily marked by two salient features: 
it was-an attempt to reproduce the primitive Christian 
community as described in the New Testament, and it 
was not hierarchical. There can be no essential dis- 
tinction between those who are elect : in the sight of God 
they are equal. Nevertheless, some are qualified by special 
gifts for the service of the Church in pastoral offices. 
Calvin recognises a threefold ministry as warranted by 
Scripture. ‘The highest category is that of pastor, to which 
the names bishop and presbyter may also be given. To 
them is assigned the duty of preaching the Word in the 

2 Inst., IV, ii, 9% 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


congregation and the administration of the sacraments and 
discipline. With them are associated elders or lay pres- 
byters, who share in the government of the Church. The 
third class is that of the deacons, whose office is to care for 
the poor and sick. This principle of lay representation in 
the government of the Church is fundamental and is im- 
portant in its bearing on the political influence of Calvin- 
ism. In Geneva, where Calvin’s influence was sometimes 
supreme, he never succeeded in making himself and never 
wished to become a dictator. The affairs of the Church 
were carried on by discussion in which laymen took part. 
But perhaps another feature of Calvin’s ecclesiastical 
organisation was even more important in its political re- 
sults. He revived the democratic idea of the necessity of 
popular consent in the appointment of pastors. ‘There 
is, he holds, ‘‘a common right and liberty’ in the Church 
to a voice in the electionof ministers. ‘‘It isa good remark 
of Cyprian when he contends ‘ that it proceeds from divine 
authority that a priest should be elected publicly in the 
presence of all the people, and that he should be approved 
as a worthy and fit person by the public judgment and 
testimony.’ . . . It is a legitimate ministry according to 
the Word of God, when those who appear suitable persons 
are appointed with the consent and approbation of the 
people.” 4 

If Calvinism has been one of the nursing mothers of civil 
liberty it has performed this function by reason of its 
theology, its moral discipline, and its ecclesiastical organi- 
sation, and not because of any conscious effort on the part 
of its founder to realise a free state. The doctrine of 
election was a potent tonic to steel the nerves of humble 
men against the terrors of princes. One who is assured 
that he is numbered among that eternal aristocracy of 

1 Inst., IV, iv, 15- 

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JOHN CALVIN 
heaven whose names were determined before the founda- 
tion of the world may well feel contempt for the pomp of 
kings, who are often only too plainly numbered among the 
reprobate; and even though his creed may not encourage 
or even countenance rebellion, at the last the fire will kindle, 
and he will speak with his tongue—and do more than speak. 
The austere discipline of the Calvinist régime is the very 
antithesis of what the modern world means by liberty, but 
it was a preparation for freedom. ‘‘ The rough education 
of Calvin, imposing on his disciples the law of labour and 
of moral obligation, revealed the dignity of man and pre- 
pared him to deserve freedom.” 1! ‘The self-determining 
religious communities of the reformed faith were seed-plots 
for the democratic state. 

Compared with these forces which Calvin released, al- 
most unconsciously, to ferment in the social life of Europe, 
his actual opinions and pronouncements on political theory 
are unimportant. The fundamental question which has to 
be considered is that of the relation between the Church 
and the State, and in order to obtain anything approaching 
a coherent view from Calvin’s writings on this matter it 
is useful to distinguish between his conception of an ideal 
condition of things and the duties of the Church in circum- 
stances far removed from the ideal. It is commonly asserted 
that Calvin was an advocate of a theocratic theory of govern- 
ment and that his theocracy meant the complete subordination 
of the civil Government tothe ecclesiastical. ‘‘ Calvin and his 
followers taught,”’ says Dr G. P. Gooch, “‘ that the Church 
should dominate the State and control the life of its mem- 
bers.” ? This is possibly the logical outcome of Calvin’s 
position, and his activity at Geneva may not inaccurately 
be described as tending toward this goal. But, on the 


1 F. de Crue, L’action politique de Calvin (Geneva, 1909), p. 6. 
2 Political Thought in England, p. 201. 


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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


other hand, his formal doctrine appears to be that Church 
and State are co-ordinate institutions, each of divine authority 
and each possessing rights in its own sphere. There is 
in him at least the germ of the thought of a “ free Church 
and a free State.”’ He is utterly opposed to “those in- 
fatuated and barbarous men ”’ who wish to overthrow that 
ordinance of civil rule which has been established by God. 
Not less does he condemn those “ flatterers of princes” 
who encourage them to extend their power beyond its 
appointed limits. For these limits may be defined, and 
the spheres of the ecclesiastical and the civil. power re- 
spectively marked off from one another. ‘They may be 
described as the external and the internal. The Church 
is concerned with the spiritual and eternal interests of man, 
while the State has the office of caring for his bodily and 
temporal needs. ‘“*‘ He who knows how to distinguish be- 
tween the body and the soul, between the present and transi- 
tory life and the future eternal one, will find no difficulty 
in understanding that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and 
civil government are things very different and remote from 
one another.” ! 

Nevertheless, this separation of Church and State is not 
consistently carried out even in Calvin’s theory, and, indeed, 
we can see very well that any radical distinction between » 
them was not compatible with his most fundamental con- 
victions. There cannot be two final ends, one for the 
Church and the other for the State. ‘The supreme end and 
purpose of every institution can be nothing but the glory 
of God. Hence both civil and ecclesiastical authority 
should be tending to promote the same end, and there can 
be no inherent distinction in their purposes. We must 
also never forget that for Calvin the Will of God was to be 
found revealed in the Bible with clear finality, and that his 

1 Inst., IV, xx, I. 
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JOHN CALVIN 


own interpretation of the Bible was to him the only rational 
one. Thus the ideal state will be in practice though not 
in theory a theocracy, based upon a revealed divine law 
interpreted by ecclesiastics. ‘The city of Geneva, though 
it never in Calvin’s own opinion approximated to his ideal, 
was regarded by his foreign disciples as the model of what 
a state might be ; and there we find a nominal distinction 
between the civil and ecclesiastical polity, combined with a 
real subservience of the civil power. Indeed, the civil 
Government appears at times to have been more fanatical 
than the ministers, for in the case of Servetus the magis- 
trates insisted on burning, in opposition to Calvin, who 
desired a more merciful form of execution. 

In Calvin’s theory of the state the magistrates are under 
obligations of a religious kind. ‘The “ maintenance of 
true religion and virtue,” to use the language of the Prayer 
Book, is their highest duty. ‘They are foolish, says Calvin, 
who “‘ would wish the magistrates to neglect all thoughts 
of God, and to confine themselves entirely to the adminis- 
tration of justice among men; as though God appointed 
governors in His name to decide secular controversies and 
disregarded what is of far greater importance, the pure 
worship of Himself according to the rule of His law.’’} 
Calvin is a firm adherent of that belief which has probably 
caused more human misery than any other—that it is the 
duty of governors to enforce religious conformity. Nothing 
certainly could be farther from his mind than the concep- 
tion of religious tolerance. ‘“‘ When the Papists are so 
harsh and so violent in defence of their superstitions that 
they rage cruelly to shed innocent blood, are not Christian 
magistrates ashamed to show themselves less ardent in 
defence of the sure truth?”’? The episode of Servetus 


Bo insts IN, XX, 0. 
2 Correspondence, September 9, 1553, quoted by de Crue, op. cit. 


211 


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reminds us that we are not reading a pious opinion remote 
from actuality, but that what Calvin wrote he was prepared 
to act upon to the death. 

We must turn now to the subject of Governments which 
are not ideal, and ask what duties have Christian men with 
respect to them. Calvin’s reply to this question, which, 
we must remember, was one of pressing urgency to many 
of his disciples, may be summed up in a phrase—passive 
obedience, with one reservation. He thought that he found 
in St Paul clear directions on this matter, and he sought 
no farther. ‘Tyrants no less than governors who perform 
in a godly manner the duties of their office are raised up 
by God, the former to be the agents of His wrath as the 
latter are of His mercy. A man of the worst character 
who holds sovereign power “‘ ought to be regarded with 
the same reverence and esteem which they would show to 
the best of kings.’’1 Moreover, it is not our province to 
attempt to remedy these evils, which must be accepted 
as divine chastisements for sin. We may only pray that 
the heart of the tyrant may be changed, or that God may 
overrule the wickedness of rebellious men so that, though 
they add to their own damnation by rebellion, their sin 
may turn out to the advantage of the oppressed children 
of God? ‘‘ Though the correction of tyrannical dominion 
is the vengeance of God, we are not therefore to conclude 
that it is committed to us, who have received no other 
command than to obey and suffer.” “If we have this 
constantly present to our eyes and impressed upon our 
hearts, that the most iniquitous kings are placed upon the 
throne by the same decree by which the authority of all 
kings is established, those seditious thoughts will never 
enter our minds, that a king is to be treated according to 
his merits, and that it is not reasonable for us to be subject 

1 Inst., IV, xx, 26. 2 Ibid., IV, xx, 30. 
212 


JOHN CALVIN 


to a king who does not on his part perform towards us 
those duties which his office requires.”1 

The connexion of this political doctrine with the pre- 
destination theology is sufficiently obvious. We must 
observe that the Government is to be obeyed not because 
it is legitimate according to some test which can be applied 
by the human reason, but simply because it exists. Its 
legitimacy is implied in its existence, because it could not 
exist without the Will of God. A distinction therefore 
appears between the passive obedience enjoined by Calvin 
and that which became, under the Stuarts, a favourite tenet 
of Anglican divines. Filmer and his brethren claimed only 
that we owe obedience to sovereigns who are legitimate 
according to the patriarchal theory; Calvin invests every 
de facto Government with divine authority, and, save in 
one particular, would not have been more favourable to 
resistance than Hobbes. We must observe, however, 
that Calvin’s view is really in fundamental disagreement 
with that of Hobbes, since he definitely excludes anything 
in the nature of a social contract. ‘There is, indeed, one 
minor reservation, of which too much has frequently been 
made by writers on the history of political ideas. Ina few 
unemphatic sentences Calvin asserts that it is the duty of 
magistrates who occupy positions in constitutional states 
to defend the traditional rights of their offices and to fulfil 
faithfully the charge of protecting the people. But this 
is no real exception to the general principle, for such magis- 
trates have the same kind of authority as kings. They 
have come to be where and what they are by the divine 
ordination: they must fulfil the purpose which has placed 
them there. The real interest lies not in what Calvin says 
about the rights of magistrates, but in what he fails to say 
about the rights of the people. We shall search his writings 


Li Inst., 1V, xX, 27: 
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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION THINKERS 


in vain for any recognition of the principle of democracy or 
any but contemptuous references to the mass of citizens. 

The one serious reservation which Calvin makes in this 
sweeping doctrine of government is concerned with re- 
ligion and not with politics. ‘The civil power has no 
authority in things pertaining to God. Hobbes’ view that 
the subject ought to adopt the religion of the governor 
would be to him the most horrible blasphemy. If the 
governor orders us to join in superstitious worship we 
must disobey. ‘“* We ought to obey God rather than men.” 
Even in that case we must not rebel or do anything against 
the persecuting power. We must suffer anything rather 
than submit to the impious edicts of modern Jeroboams. 
“Tf they command anything against God it ought not to 
have the least attention, nor in this case ought we to pay 
any regard to the dignity attached to magistrates.” } 

It is perhaps one of the minor ironies of history that 
one whose explicit teaching was almost wholly on the 
side of established authority should have given a powerful 
impulse to movements toward freedom and democracy. 
Calvinism in Scotland, Holland, and England was in effect 
though not in intention a liberating political influence. 
The causes of this we have already partly seen, and they 
are in fact not difficult to discover. ‘To some extent they 
are historical and in a measure inhere in the doctrine itself. 
The Calvinist congregations found themselves everywhere 
in opposition. They represented the shock troops of the 
reforming movement ; and it is not easy even for a Calvinist 
to pray against the wickedness of those in high places while 
refraining from all overt attempts to bring about the answer 
to the prayer. It was at least a psychological feat which 
Calvinism did not succeed in performing. The Churches 
thus scattered in hostile environments were, moreover, 


A TASER LV SX, 32 
214 


JOHN CALVIN 


of necessity self-governed. They had to provide for their 
inner welfare without the assistance or interference of 
authority from outside. In this way that democratic ele- 
ment in the government of the Church, and particularly 
in the appointment of pastors, which Calvin never fully 
carried through in Geneva, became a leading character- 
istic of Calvinism elsewhere; and the habit of democracy 
formed in ecclesiastical life could not be restrained in the 
long run from affecting political action. But there is a 
deeper cause in the doctrine itself. It is possible to deduce 
two opposite conclusions from a belief in predestination. 
It may lead, as it did in Calvin’s own mind, to a slavish 
theory of the duty of submission. But another and more 
inspiring deduction is possible. If in the eternal purpose 
of God the human race is divided into the elect and the 
reprobate, the saints and the lost, it may seem that it is also 
His purpose that the saints should rule the earth and that 
it is their destiny to overthrow the ungodly rulers. The 
reservation which Calvin made to his doctrine of obedience, 
that we must obey God rather than men, cannot easily be 
confined, as he confined it, to the question of worship. 
It may be that God has commands other than those concern- 
ing cult and Church, and that in the State itself the maxim 
applies. If we had to sum up Calvin’s influence in a 
phrase we could not find a better one than this: he taught 
his disciples that we must obey God rather than men. His 
weaknesses arise from the fact that he was too positive that 
he knew always what God commanded, but his impressive- 
ness comes from this profound conviction, an impressive- 
ness which remains although his theology is antiquated and 
diluted even in the Churches which call themselves by his 
name. We must obey God rather than men—a message not 
perhaps without value even in the politics of to-day. 


W. R. Matruews 
215 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A. Primary SourRcEs. 


Carvin, Joun: [2 Novum Testamentum Commentarii, edited by A. Tholuck. 
Berlin, 1833-4. 
Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by H. Beveridge. Edin- 
burgh, 1879. 
Opera in Corpus Reformatorum, vols. xxix—lxxxvil. Brunswick, 1869-97. 


B. SECONDARY SOURCES. 


Banke, Hermann: Die Probleme der Theologie Calvins. Leipzig, 1922. 
Cruz, F. pe: L’action politique de Calvin. Geneva, 1909. 
Dovumercuz, E.: Fean Calvin. § vols. Lausanne, 1899-1910. 
Hunter, A. Mitcuert: The Teaching of Calvin. Glasgow, 1920. 
Menzizs, Aran: 4 Study of Calvin. London, 1918. 

Reyzurn, Hucu Y.: Fon Calvin. London, 1904. 


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